Travelling Images: Circulating Photographs, Objects, Knowledge

Leisure travel can be traced back to the “Grand Tour” starting from the 17th century, however more widespread tourism flourished shortly after the Industrial Revolution at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century. Steamships did not only transport people and goods across the sea; images both as objects and as visual ideas were sent back and forth. From images showing architectural and historical sites to the exoticised and staged photographs of certain “types” of peoples, this array of visuals helped shape an overall image of foreign cultures and territories that would otherwise have not been comprehensible to the so-called “armchair traveller”. Visual representations of foreign regions acted as souvenirs and were also vital when identifying one’s home or nationality. Photo- graphs of colonised territories had a profound effect on how occupied places were perceived and understood; they served as a connecting tie between the foreign and the familiar.
The workshop serves as an open platform for doctoral and post- doctoral candidates to exchange thoughts on how to approach the topic of travelling images. We want to initiate ties between and across universities and disciplines to help encourage our understanding of complex transnational travel routes of images. The goal is to thoroughly investigate the changing interpre- tations and meanings of images, both through a media specific and art historical lens, and in a wider cultural, historical and social realm.

Thursday, October 12, 2017 University of Zurich, Rämistrasse 59 Room RAA-G-15:

6:15 p.m. “Photography’s History in Meiji Japan: New Approaches and Challenges”
Public Evening Lecture by Dr. Luke Gartlan, University of St Andrews

Friday, October 13, 2017
University of Zurich, Rämistrasse 59 Room RAA-E-08:

9:30 a.m. Welcome Address
by Prof. Dr. Bettina Gockel, University of Zurich Introduction by Sophie Junge and Stella Jungmann, University of Zurich

10:00 a.m. “Photography and China’s Early Emancipation Movement”
Xenia Piëch, University of Zurich

10:45 a.m. “From Traveling Images to Traveling Bodies: Korean War Orphans in Hollywood and the Rhetoric of Interracial Adoption”
Jung Joon Lee, Rhodes Island School of Design

11:30 a.m. Coffee Break

12:00 p.m. “Developing Photographs and Networks: Images of the Japanese Embassy in the United States, 1860”
Stella Jungmann, University of Zurich

12:45 p.m. Lunch Break

2:15 p.m. “Picturing the Sacred: Yasu Kohei and his Photographic Reproductions of Religious Images in Guatemala”
Ping-Heng Chen, University of Heidelberg

3:00 p.m. “From Snapshot to Cultural Propaganda: The Formation of Persian Architectural Photographs, 1925–1935”
Yuka Kadoi, University of Edinburgh

3:45 p.m. Coffee Break

4:15 p.m. “Old Surabaya – New Surabaya: Photography and the Making of the Colonial City” Sophie Junge, University of Zurich

5:15 p.m. Apéro for all Participants

Saturday, October 14, 2017 University of Zurich, Rämistrasse 59 Room RAA-E-08:

9:30 a.m. “Ethnography to Art: ‘Japanische Ringer, Nach der Natur’”
Christina Thurman-Wild, University of Zurich

10:15 a.m. “Circulation, Appropriation,
Redefinition – The History of Songea Mbano’s Portrait” Eliane Kurmann, University of Zurich

11:00 a.m.Coffee Break

11:30 a.m. Panel Discussion with all Participants

The evening lecture is free and open to the public.
In order to participate in the workshop, please register via e-mail until October 1, 2017 by contacting Stella Jungmann, Center for Studies in the Theory and History of Photography at the Institute of Art History: stella.jungmannkhist.uzh.ch

Concept and organisation: Sophie Junge,
Stella Jungmann, Xenia Piëch, Eliane Kurmann, University of Zurich.