This conference investigates photographs and photographic archives in relation to notions of place. In this context, place is used to explore both the physical location of a photograph or archive, as well as the place of photography as a discursive practice with regard to its value or significance as a method of viewing and conceiving the world. Photographs are mobile objects that can change their location over time, transported to diverse commercial, artistic, social, academic and scientific locations. The photograph’s physical location thus has an impact upon its value, function and significance; these topics are explored at the conference through a range of archives and across disciplines. How might the mobility of photographs open up thinking about archives and, in turn, classificatory structures in disciplines such as Art History, Archaeology and Anthropology, or in the Sciences? The conference also addresses questions of digital space, which renders the image more readily accessible, but complicates issues relating to location. What is the place, or value, of the photographic archive in the digital age?
The conference features internationally-renowned speakers, with a keynote lecture by Geoffrey Batchen and a final discussion led by Elizabeth Edwards. Site visits to Oxford’s outstanding photographic collections are also planned, including to the Bodleian Library’s Talbot Archive, the Pitt Rivers Museum, the History of Science Museum, the Griffith Institute’s archives of archaeological expeditions, and the History of Art Department’s Visual Resources Centre.

The conference is convened by Geraldine Johnson (University of Oxford), Deborah Schultz (Regent’s University London), and Costanza Caraffa (Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz—Max-Planck-Institut). It is sponsored by the Kress Foundation, Oxford’s John Fell Fund and the History Faculty’s Sanderson Fund, and Christ Church, Oxford. It is the sixth in the international Photo Archives conference series.

To register for the conference—£35 (£20 for graduate students)—
go to: www.hoa.ox.ac.uk/events/photo or email: photo.conferencehoa.ox.ac.uk

CONFERENCE PROGRAMME
THURSDAY, APRIL 20, 2017

9:15-9:30: REGISTRATION

9:30-9:45: WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION
Geraldine Johnson (University of Oxford) and Deborah Schultz (Regent’s University London)

9:45-11:15: SESSION I: ARCHIVAL PROCESSES
Chair: Costanza Caraffa (Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz—Max-Planck-Institut)

Joan M. Schwartz (Queen’s University, Ontario)
Photographs and Archives: of place, as place, in place

Clare Harris (University of Oxford)
Imperial Displacements: Colonial Photographic Archives and the Production of Knowledge about India

Frederick N. Bohrer (Hood College)
Transports of Vision: Frederic Edwin Church’s Photographic Collection of the Mediterranean and Middle East

11:15-11:45: TEA/COFFEE BREAK

11:45-1:15: SESSION II: FROM ARCHIVES TO ALBUMS
Chair: Deborah Schultz (Regent’s University London)

Christopher Morton (University of Oxford)
The Relational Album: Photographic Networks, Anthropology, and the Learned Society

Christina Riggs (University of East Anglia)
Sticking points: Photographic albums and the forgetful archives of Egyptian archaeology

Shireen Walton (University College London)
Out of place, in cyberspace: Living digital archives in contemporary pasts

1:15-2:00: LUNCH

2:15-3:15: SITE VISIT 1 (see below for details)

3:45-5:15: SESSION III: DISCIPLINARY STRUCTURES
Chair: Martin Kemp (University of Oxford)

Luke Gartlan (University of St Andrews)
Vision in Doubt: Arctic Photography, Victorian Geology, and its Anglo-American Debates

Chitra Ramalingam (Yale University)
The laboratory as photo archive

Kelley Wilder (De Montfort University)
Photography as Protocol

5:15-5:45: DRINKS RECEPTION

5:45-7:00: KEYNOTE LECTURE
Introduced by Geraldine Johnson (University of Oxford)

Geoffrey Batchen (Victoria University of Wellington)
Apparitions: The Placeless Image

7:15: DINNER IN CHRIST CHURCH (optional—extra charge to attend)

FRIDAY, APRIL 21, 2017

10:00-11:00: SITE VISIT 2 (see details below)

11:25-11:30: WELCOME
Costanza Caraffa (Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz—Max-Planck-Institut)

11:30-1:00: SESSION IV: PRODUCTION, REPRODUCTION AND VALUE
Chair: Joan M. Schwartz (Queen’s University, Ontario)

Lucie Ryzova (University of Birmingham)
Sites of Enchantment: Photography, Modernity, History

Estelle Blaschke (University of Lausanne)
Saving Space, Mediating Place: Photography and the Reproduction of Collections and Archives

Catherine E. Clark (MIT)
From ‘Trash to Treasure’: Loss, Value, and the Photo Archive

1:00-1:45: LUNCH

1:45-3:15: SESSION V: FORMS OF MATERIALIZATION
Chair: Geraldine Johnson (University of Oxford)

Pascal Griener (University of Neuchâtel)
Archiving Royal Heirlooms: The publication of the Crown treasures of the Galerie d’Apollon (Louvre) and its materiality

Shamoon Zamir (New York University Abu Dhabi)
Archive, Exhibition, Book: “The Family of Man” Reconstituted

Nina Lager Vestberg (Norwegian University of Science and Technology)
The Place of Photography and the Phases of Digitisation

3:15-3:45: TEA/COFFEE BREAK

3:45-4:30: CLOSING REMARKS AND FINAL DISCUSSION
Introduced by Deborah Schultz (Regent’s University London)

Elizabeth Edwards (De Montfort University)

SITE VISITS
After booking a place, conference participants will be able to register their preferences for two site visits from amongst the following options, with the visits taking place on Thursday, April 20, at 2:15pm and on Friday, April 21, at 10am:
• Bodleian Library – William Henry Fox Talbot Archive
Hosted by Larry Schaaf (University of Oxford)
• Griffith Institute – archives of archaeological expeditions to Egypt
Hosted by Christina Riggs (University of East Anglia)
• History of Science Museum – early scientific photographic collections
Hosted by Kelley Wilder (De Montfort University) and Lee Macdonald (History of Science Museum)
• Pitt Rivers Museum – anthropological photographic collections
Hosted by Christopher Morton (Pitt Rivers Museum) and Philip Grover (Pitt Rivers Museum)
• Visual Resources Centre – image collections of the Department of History of Art
Hosted by Deborah Schultz (Regent’s University London) and Francesca Issatt (University of Oxford)