After Post-Photography 10: What Is Photography Becoming?

Shakespeare’s Hamlet observed that the world is out of joint, but a world out of joint is not a world in chaos. Its pieces – people, society, economy, ecology – remain, but the fabric holding them together is weak, crumbling, torn. A similar observation can be made concerning photography. Its pieces – image, politics, technology, truth, light, memory, process – are still there, but as a concept, photography is swaying: is what we’re so used to calling photography still holding together? Or does it come undone into a disarray of erratically moving parts, spawning interpretations catering to the needs of those in power and those trusting them more than their own good judgment and their own eyes? Has photography as a concept of producing technical images with the help of electromagnetic radiations been flawed from the very beginning, and does this moment of crisis then come in handy to rethink what we want from, and for, photography – and maybe even what photography wants?

PROGRAM.

Thursday, November 6
11:00 to 16:15 — APP+ Workshop for Emerging Researchers
think tank for emerging researchers on their ongoing projects; attendance restricted to presenters and reviewers
Location: Yerevan Center for International Education
31, 4 Charents Street (entrance from 9th Street)

Chairs: Pavel Sharkov and Olga Davidenko (European University at St. Petersburg)

Presenters:
Anna Agapova (Higher School of Economics, Moscow): “The Photographic Assemblages of a Soviet Motorcycle Tourist”
Ina Alice Danila (National University of Arts in Bucharest): “In Search of a Non-intrusive Visual Method to Write About Family Photography and Diaspora”
Anastasia Karkotska (Independent Researcher, Yerevan): “Tatev Guidebook: How Can Ordinary Photographs Deconstruct the Perception of Heritage?”
Marinus Reuter (Independent Researcher, Hamburg): “The Work of Photo-conceptualist Fred Lonidier”
Dennis Stepanov (Concordia University, Montreal): “Soviet Conscript Demobilization Albums”

Reviewers: Maria Gourieva, Dominik Gutmeyr-Schnur, Suryanandini Narain, Friedrich Tietjen, Erika Wolf

16:30 to 18:30 — Portfolio Review with Local Photographers: photographers’ portfolios viewed by international reviewers.
Location: Varpet, 35v Tumanyan Street
Reviewers: Alexandra Dennett, Farrah Karapetian, Daria Panaiotti, Jorge Ribalta, Friedrich Tietjen
Register for portfolio review

18:30 to 19:30 — Presentation of Recent Books by APP Participants: members of the APP community will present their recent publications on photography.
Location: Varpet, 35v Tumanyan Street

Friday, November 7
10:00 — 17:30 — conference panels
Location: Ibis Yerevan Center, 5/1 Northern Ave / online

10:00 — 12:00 — Conference Opening: “After Post-Photography 10: Where is Photography Going? “. Maria Gourieva and Friedrich Tietjen (Conference Co-founders)

Panel 1: Archiving Communities. Chair: Maria Gourieva (European University at St. Petersburg)
Suryanandini Narain (Jawaharlal Nehru University): “Finding Family, Finding Photos”
Claude Ewert (University of Luxembourg): “Post-Family of Man”
Friedrich Tietjen (Jewish Museum Frankfurt): “Normality, and Other Extraordinary Conditions. Jewish Private Photography till 1950“

12:00 — 13:30 — lunch break

13:30 — 15:30 — Panel 2: Producing the Other. Chair: Olga Davydova (ITMO University, Saint-Petersburg)
Dominik Gutmeyr-Schnur (University of Graz):»The International Discovery of ‘National Antiquities.’ Photographing Archaeological Sites in the Transimperial Caucasus»
Donald Weber (Aalto University, Helsinki): “Photography Has Entered the Chat: WhatsApp as Local Photographic Exchange”
Ali Shobeiri (Leiden University): “Virtual Photography”
Olga Annanurova (Independent Scholar): “Exposing the Frame: On Post- and Decolonial Discourses on Photography”

15:30 — 16:00 — coffee break

16:00 — 17:30 — Public Lecture: Svetlana Gorshenina (EUR’ORBEM, CNRS/Sorbonne University), “Between Nostalgias and Nationalisms: Analyzing Discussions on Old Photographs of Russian Turkestan on Facebook, Methodological Challenges and Research Ethics”

(move to Varpet, 35v, Tumanyan Street)

18:30 — 20:00 — Public Program curated by Cultural and Social Narratives Lab (Yerevan): “Complex Spaces and Complex Pasts Through Ordinary Photographs”
Location: Varpet, 35v Tumanyan Street
Speakers: Tigran Amiryan, Arsen Abrahamyan, Pap Ohanyan, Varduhi Balyan

Saturday, November 8
10:00 — 17:30 — conference panels
Location: Ibis Yerevan Center, 5/1 Northern Ave / online

10:00 — 11:35 — Panel 3: Photographic Epistemes. Chair: Annette Vowinckel (Humboldt University, Berlin)
Olga Davidenko (European University at St. Petersburg): “The Soviet Slide-Film: Between Cinema and Photography”
Timofey Rakov (Higher School of Economics, Saint Petersburg): “Visualizing the Future: Photographic Representation of Science in the Late Soviet Union”
Alexandra Dennett (Harvard University): “Photographs under Construction: Producing 10 let Uzbekistana”

11:35 — 12:00 — coffee break

12:00 — 13:35 — Panel 4: Blow up: Bodies and Matters. Chair: TBA
Sofia Michel (Georg-August Universität Göttingen): “Blow Up, or In Search of Scientific Evidence in 1920s Movement Photography”
Pavel Sharkov (European University at St. Petersburg): “The Wretched, the Poor, the Barefoot Saints: Russian Holy Fools’ (Self-)Representation in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”
Olga Davydova (ITMO University, Saint-Petersburg): “Photo Portrait as an Epistemological Tool: The Russians by Nathan Farb (1977)”

13:35 — 15:00 — lunch break

15:00 — 17:00 — Panel 5: Photography and Empire: Colonial Legacies and Decolonial Futures. Chair: Erika Wolf (European University at St. Petersburg)
Vigen Galstyan (Curator and art historian, Yerevan):
“The Prosthetics of Ethnography: Panos Terlemezyan’s Photographic Self-fashioning in Turn of the 20th Century Armenian Visual Culture”
Followed by a roundtable discussion with Dominik Gutmeyr-Schnur, Svetlana Gorshenina, Olga Annanurova, Farrah Karapetian, and Alexandra Dennett

(move to Varpet, 35v, Tumanyan Street)

18:00 — 19:30 — Public Lecture by Jorge Ribalta (independent curator, photo historian, and artist, Barcelona): “Documentary Against Post-Photography. A Curatorial Experience”
Location: Varpet, 35v Tumanyan Street / online