Frederick Douglass was a strong advocate for photographic self-representation. He eloquently used photography, not long after its invention, to shape how African Americans see ourselves and likewise how we are seen by others. This intentional use of photography afforded him the title of the most photographed person of the nineteenth century. What does it take to be the most photographed person of the twenty first century, and how can portraiture continue to shift understandings of Black identity within established, often monolithic, historical narratives? These questions motivate Black Alchemy, a series through which I consider Black identity, history, and representation. I turn to light, alongside geometric abstraction, to construct photographs that investigate and recontextualize Douglass’s historical legacy with contemporary concerns around Black identity.

This article examines Manchukuo’s photography registration system (1940) that the bureaucrat Mutō Tomio introduced. Conceived to utilize photography for propaganda purposes, the registration system significantly changed the production of photographs in Manchuria, ushering in a bureaucrat-led artistic climate that embraced reform bureaucrats’ vision of state planning. I begin by examining how Mutō’s perspectives on bureaucracy, state-building, and corporatism embodied the core principles of reform bureaucrats. Then, I investigate how the ideals of these civil servants were articulated by the photography registration system, organizing the discussion into three sections that focus on ideology, organization, and technology; these focuses correspond to content, institutional structures, and form in art, respectively. In sum, imperial Japan’s war with China necessitated a justification for mobilization, which was expressed in the war ideology hakkō ichiu (“the eight corners of the world under one roof”). This ideology was conveyed by photographs of loyal-spirit towers (chūreitō). To solidify the state’s control over cultural production, the government organized and established a leader-based system for the photography world. The importance of technology for the war effort ended the existing photographic propaganda model guided by Fuchikami Hakuyō. His “dark” aesthetic was considered undesirable; instead, a modernist aesthetic was favored for registered pictures.

The conversation is the result of multiple exchanges around different projects and contexts of practice undertaken by Anthony Luvera over the course of his career. Driven by a desire to explore Socially Engaged Photography (SEP) within an expanded critical framework, Gary Bratchford and Anthony Luvera discuss the logics of neoliberalism; representational responsibility; the use of data as a mode of address in the context of SEP; the politics of the ‘invitation’; and the triangulated partnership between subject, photographer, and audience as productive space for political engagement.

Delving into the nuanced exploration of cultural identity amidst visibility and invisibility, this interview, conducted on January 29, 2024, at the residence of Dr. Marcelo Schellini in Malaysia, provides a compelling insight. Marcelo Schellini, a distinguished professional in photography and a professor specializing in visual arts and visual anthropology, offers profound reflections on the presence of African Muslims in Brazil through his project titled “Tarikh al-Brasil”. Through this visual journey, Schellini captures the architectural diversity and societal contributions of this marginalized community, blending documentation with artistic interpretation to reveal narratives often concealed from view. Moreover, the interview illuminates the challenges confronted by the African Muslim community, grappling with social neglect and inadequate representation. Drawing from his extensive teaching and global travels, Schellini enriches the discourse on cultural visibility, providing deep insights into the dynamics of identity in contemporary society. This dialogue prompts viewers to ponder the interplay between visibility and invisibility, thus reshaping perceptions of cultural identity within the shadows of society.

Throughout the twentieth century, several women artists have photographically interpreted not only the destruction during World War II, the Yugoslav Wars of the first half of the 1990s, and/or their aftermaths, but other types of crises since the period of World War I as well. These interpretations warrant discussion in the context of a more comprehensive representation of the women’s gaze. By creating private photo albums at the beginning of the century, capturing life in internment camps and depicting the everyday aspects of existence during World War II, and extending into contemporary re-evaluations of politics and memory production influenced by the breakup of Yugoslavia, women artists chronicle the wartime reality and its consequences, which is in stark contrast to the prevailing belief that women often operated within the safety of their comfort zone. Through their photographic practice, they illuminate the gaps in history and the effects of fabricating certain segments of it, and respond by capturing images that transition from private, intimate settings to public discourse.

Punctuated Land (2019-2023) is a practice-led research project that, through photography, explores the enduring legacies of conflict and the historical and political forces that enable and perpetuate its normalization. Recurring visits to Israel/Palestine, tracing Israel’s de facto borders, and spending time in the occupied territories of the West Bank, were methods of observing how conflict gets inscribed on the verges and in the overlooked; including trees and other natural entities. This paper examines how living in ongoing conflict filters into the ground and into language, and how this informs how we view and interpret images. Traces and their photographic representation become the means to make visible the impact of maintaining dominance over the land. Practices of control and discrimination that appear in the landscape are reflected in the use of language, the interpretation of local laws, and the exercise of power over access and restrictions. While the mechanisms of violence and occupation promote a vision of this land as desolate and barren, this photographic project explores poetic and subtle visual methods to capture the traces of human presence that highlight the multiplicity of narratives and the entangled coexistence of collective memories.