View. Theories and Practices of Visual Culture, issue 17: Protesting Images

Managing editors: Magda Szcześniak, Katarzyna Bojarska

“The articulation of protest […] indicates finding a language for protest, the vocalization, the verbalization or the visualization of political protest. However, this combination of concepts also designates the structure or internal organization of protest movements,” wrote Hito Steyerl in 2002. Fifteen years later, due amongst others to the emergence of the Internet as a political tool and the growing importance of self-produced images, the dynamics of protest – its articulation and structure – has most probably changed.

In the 17th issue of “View,” we seek to examine the visual culture of protest movements – both contemporary and historical – asking about the complex, equivocal and changing relations between images and acts of resistance towards oppressive dominant cultures and those in power. Marked with a suitable hashtag, photographs of protesters, bird’s-eye (or maybe rather drone) views of street demonstrations, images of issues around which communities congregate, as well as banners, placards, and all other symbols with which people identify – all these images have the power to mobilize the public, as well as provide a way of participating. However, along with the rise of popularity of new visual genres, such as protest selfies, a familiar critique of images resurfaces. Authors of protest selfies are described as narcissistic and sharing images is often seen as a substitute for real and authentic involvement, a superficial and short-lived way of showing support. Of course, other questions should be posed. How does a protesting mutltitude, community, crowd create politically efficacious images? What sort of visual mechanisms are employed by those in power to undermine the opposition? Can artistic and post-artistic practices still provide inspiration in times of grassroots visual activism? Do protest images possess agency and what kind of rhetorical mechanisms do they employ? What is the relation between bodily acts of resistance and their visual documentations? We invite articles answering these and other questions about the relations of images and visual practices to historical and contemporary protest movements.

Deadline for articles: April 30, 2017. We encourage authors to consult their article topics with the managing editor. For author guidelines see: http://pismowidok.org/index.php/one/about/submissions