Photography, South Africa, Legacies.
A Symposium at the Yale University Art Gallery.
Friday, April 11, 2025.
9:30 am–3:00 pm.

Yale University Art Gallery.
Robert L. McNeil, Jr., Lecture Hall.
1111 Chapel Street, New Haven, CT.
https://artgallery.yale.edu/

Join a dynamic conversation with leading voices in photography, social history, and Black studies at the Yale University Art Gallery’s Symposium, “Photography, South Africa, Legacies.”
Organized in conjunction with the exhibition “David Goldblatt: No Ulterior Motive, “the symposium examines the work and legacy of South African photographer David Goldblatt (1930-2018), inviting timely inquiries into the structures and representations of apartheid. Using Goldblatt’s photographs as an entry point, presentations will explore the intersections of photography, land dispossession, resistance, and photography’s role in shaping and telling history.

// Schedule

9:30 am
Welcome
Judy Ditner, the Richard Benson Curator of Photography and Digital Media, Yale University Art Gallery

9:45 am
"About David: The Quiet and the Commonplace"
Brenda Goldblatt, David Goldblatt’s daughter and collaborator

10:00 am
Panel 1: "Photographs of Dispossession"

"The life, death, and resurrection of Indian South African cityscapes"
Dan Magaziner, Professor of History, Yale University

"Contentious Remembering: Photography, Memory, and the Memorialization of Dispossession in South Africa"
M. Neelika Jayawardane, Professor of English, State University of New York at Oswego

"Celebrating Home in the City: Photography and Black Johannesburg"
Thuto Thipe, Assistant Professor of African History, University of Chicago

11:00 am
Conversation: "Poloko"
Jabulani Dhlamini, South African documentary photographer
Leslie M. Wilson, Associate Director, Academic Engagement and Research, Art Institute of Chicago

12:00 pm
Break

1:00 pm
Panel 2: "Portraits of Resistance"

"An Open Book"
Oluremi Onabanjo, the Peter Schub Curator of Photography, Museum of Modern Art

"Portraiture and the Industry of 'Visibility'"
Antawan Byrd, Assistant Professor of Art History, Northwestern University, and Associate Curator of Photography, Art Institute of Chicago

"Cropped and Redefined Impressions: The Passbook as Portrait of South(-ern) African History"
Drew Thompson, Associate Professor of Visual Culture and Black Studies, Bard Graduate Center

2:00 pm
Roundtable: All participants

The full schedule is also available online. Free and open to the public. Registration is not required.

This event is organized in conjunction with David Goldblatt: No Ulterior Motive, by exhibition curators Judy Ditner and Leslie M. Wilson, as well as Daniel Menzo, the Marcia Brady Tucker Fellow, Department of Photography, Yale University Art Gallery. Symposium made possible by generous support from Jane P. Watkins, M.P.H. 1970, and the Martin A. Ryerson Lectureship Fund.