Photographic Exhibition Research Articles

Michael Liu’s Magic and Trans to a New Life: yao/trans/queer kinship, documentary mediation, and the NGO gaze

ABSTRACT This article analyzes two strikingly different documentaries by Michael Liu which were included in the “Northeast China Yao-at-work Photography Exhibition” (dongbei yao zhanjie richang in Taipei 2017) on the lives of cross-dressed and transgender (male-to-female) sex workers in Dongbei and the way they discuss their futures and “yao” or “trans” identities differently according to the different modes of documentary employed. In Magic (nü yao er, 2014) we see their practices of everyday life, improvised queer forms of kinship and survival, their dark sense of humor and their business ambitions, whereas in Trans to a New Life (2016) they address their hardships and dreams of the future to the compassionate “NGO gaze” that demands testimonial about being a victim of discrimination (from family members, hospitals, and in employment). Understanding these rhetorical differences helps to intervene in a major debate in contemporary China over the role of NGOs, especially regarding transgender identity, sex work, HIV, and queer forms of kinship. I also connect these recent documentaries to films about queer sex workers in Beijing by Cui Zi’en [2005; 2012. Queer China, “Comrade” China. Brooklyn, NY: dGenerate Films], debates over the testimonial and ethnographic format of an influential U.S. documentary about transgender women of color and sex workers, Jennie Livingston’s Paris Is Burning (1990), and current debates in China and the U.S. over trans cultural production, respectability politics, and the politics of visibility.

Exploring innovative approaches to fundraising for palliative care

Palliative care is a holistic approach aimed at improving the quality of life for those facing life-limiting illnesses and their families. Palliative care services often face financial constraints that restrict their ability to reach all those in need. There are difficulties accessing traditional funding mechanisms; therefore, innovative fundraising strategies are required to sustain and expand palliative care initiatives. In this paper, diverse fundraising approaches for palliative care are described, based on group discussions and collective brainstorming sessions by clinicians undergoing a Fellowship in Palliative Care. Fundraising approaches that were deemed innovative, yet feasible to apply in each locality, were shortlisted and described, with their strengths and challenges outlined in detail. These approaches include art and photography exhibitions, “piggy-bank” projects, community-based fundraising, charity shops, lottery and lucky draws, shuttle bus services, grants from international organizations and collaborative networks, the use of tap-on technology, festive events, and restaurant partnerships. It is hoped that through these innovative approaches, collaborative efforts, strategic planning, and resource mobilization, it would be possible to generate funds to develop and provide palliative care services for those in need to fulfill a fundamental human right.

Prosthetic Memory: Children Remembering the Remnants of Suffering

This study draws on site observation and worksheets from a field trip to examine children’s narratives of the exhibitions at the War Remnants Museum in Hô Chí Minh City, Vietnam, with a specific focus on the portrayal of the victims of Agent Orange through both “photographic” and “life” exhibitions. In applying Landsberg’s concept of “prosthetic memory,” the findings reveal how the photographic exhibition with its visual documentary evidence, and the life exhibition, through its interactive engagement, play important roles in the formation of children’s prosthetic memories of the US war in Vietnam. These exhibitions provide context, depth, and immediacy to the portrayal of the ongoing suffering of the Agent Orange victims, enabling children to integrate historical and personal memory. This dual approach influences their perceptions, interpretations, and remembrance of the war, enhancing their learning experience by offering a deeper, more nuanced understanding of the historical event.

Returning love to Ancestors captured in the archives: Indigenous wellbeing, sovereignty and archival sovereignty

This paper explores the holistic needs of First Nations people in the archives to control their cultural heritage materials with dignity and respect. It highlights the importance of the archives supporting Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing. Indigenous people’s spiritual and emotional needs are addressed by considering the support for Indigenous people’s wellbeing in the archives. Models of social, emotional and cultural wellbeing are presented as alternatives to discussing the need for Indigenous cultural safety in the archives. A definition of Indigenous wellbeing, sovereignty and archival sovereignty provides an approach to caring for historical records with dignity and respect and a framework for the local care and protection of Indigenous people’s knowledge into the future. The concept of Returning Love to Ancestors Captured in the Archives (Thorpe 2022), extending the work of (Harkin 2019) and Baker et al. (2020), is offered as a significant reform needed in the approaches to managing historical archives. The paper concludes by sharing a case study of the In Living Memory photographic exhibition, drawn on images created by the former New South Wales Aborigines Welfare Board to demonstrate archival approaches supporting principles of trust, benefit sharing and reciprocal relationships. Combined, they respond to the pressing need for designing respectful archiving approaches for future generations that do not reproduce harm.

Комизм в фотографии и графике Литвы 1970–1980-х

The article analyses the material of a series of comic photography exhibitions held from 1973 to 1981 in Vilnius. The author of the article considers the phenomenon of the interaction between Lithuanian photography and caricature in the context of Soviet culture and reveals the similarities and differences in the approaches to creating a comic effect emerging from documentary images. Comic photography demonstrates the ability to detect the unpredictable, standing out against the stable concepts of everyday life, or to see irrational signs accompanying a person in life. A drawing is born on a blank sheet; like a photograph, it is based on a real fact but has the freedom of interpretation in time and space, in building projections. It is emphasized that from the point of view of the audience’s reception, in a photo the very moment of shifting meanings is present, while in a caricature this stage is already overcome and the audience sees the result. For the artistic culture of the Soviet period, it was important to move away from standard thinking and applied purpose. This was especially significant for caricature and photography, which for a long time were in the service of ideology.

“Normalising” flying-foxes: a bold vision for improving the public perceptions of our largest and most conspicuous bats

ABSTRACT Negative public attitudes toward particular species can have significant impact on their conservation. Traditional approaches to improving public perceptions of flying-foxes include defending them, encouraging co-existence with them and promoting empathy for them following publicised mortality events. We propose a shift toward “normalising” flying-foxes, in which they are portrayed as interesting species and a natural part of our highly esteemed biodiversity. This has somewhat already begun in a piecemeal fashion, and we provide examples of flying-foxes being represented in a range of formats, including museum and photography exhibitions, public artwork and street décor, books, preschool and school education, wildlife-based tourism and community events. However, there remains paucity in flying-foxes being represented alongside portrayals of Australian wildlife at a broader scale. We suggest that proponents fearing public backlash or impacts on market responses are a likely barrier to seeing flying-foxes being represented more widely; but conclude with hope that current participation in depicting flying-foxes as interesting and part of biodiversity will gain momentum. Ultimately, through normalising flying-foxes, public attitudes adopting their intrinsic value may eventually overshadow the perspectives of flying-foxes connected to contentious issues.

Health humanities-focused interprofessional education for age-friendly care using photography and the 4Ms framework: A curricular short report

An interprofessional education activity (IPE) using visual art was implemented to develop student empathy for older adults’ lived experiences and understanding of the age-friendly healthcare 4Ms framework. Graduate students in clinical psychology, pharmacy, physician assistant, and physical therapy participated. The activity involved an introduction to the 4Ms, submitting original photographs of older adults in the context of the 4Ms, and a photography exhibition. At the exhibition, students viewed images in interprofessional groups and discussed the images using a modified visual thinking strategy followed by a facilitated discussion. Pre/post surveys for 4Ms knowledge, empathy, interprofessional learning, and satisfaction were completed. Positive changes occurred in empathy, attitudes toward IPE, 4Ms knowledge, and satisfaction. Group discussion themes identified include recognition of the ambiguity of the lived experience; awareness of cognitive bias; and changing perspective. Activities combining visual art and IPE may develop empathy and knowledge of age-friendly care in health sciences students.

Muybridge and the Imperial Pacific: Fashioning Histories of Empire and the Coffee State, 1867–1876

This essay discusses both the continuities and discontinuities in Eadweard Muybridge’s survey photography of the western United States and the Pacific Coast of Central America and Mexico in relation to histories of empire and capital expansion. Muybridge’s photographic career followed the frontiers of US empire and capital across the Pacific Rim, and his work tended to reflect those perspectives by naturalizing the temporalities of global capital and US empire, even as it foreclosed alternate subaltern histories. Photography’s role was not passive: it participated with steam power in the integration of these regions by reimagining the disparate spaces it depicted as interconnected by the infrastructure lain by the federal government and global markets. Yet photography’s role also varied as Muybridge moved from the settler colonial context of California to societies like Guatemala with deep colonial roots. During the Liberal reforms of Justo Rufino Barrios, Muybridge’s album refashions Guatemala as a modernizing “coffee state” on the frontier of civilization. Analyzing Muybridge’s photographs alongside state archives that managed these reforms reveals how the creation of the coffee state was both a material and contested cultural production that repressed Indigenous histories of struggle, dispossession, and forced labor by representing the land and people within global currents of commodification and the photographic exhibition of Indigenous persons.

Resiliencia y memoria visual. Una mirada educativa al gran terremoto de Valdivia de 1960.

The photographic exhibition Journey to the Epicenter is an exercise of heritage education developed by the Dirección Museológica UACh within the framework of the 60th anniversary of the Valdivia earthquake. The visual understanding of the seismic phenomenon experienced in 1960 is a contribution to the heritage field, by highlighting the value of resilience in the formation of cultural identities, leaving at the disposal of the territories the articulation of scientific, social and emotional knowledge to face catastrophic situations.

초상사진 전시회에서 전시된 모델의 경험에 대한 현상학적 탐구

This study phenomenologically explored the experiences of the models exhibited in portrait photography exhibitions. The results revealed four essential themes based on 11 themes. First, the experienced gave them sense of being understood and recognized as themselves. It was greatly affected by the fact that their portrait became a work of art, occupying a physical space to be displayed. Secondly, they encounter a new version of them that created by others. Third, the experience was interesting in itself, and it was a thought-provoking and evocative experience. Fourth, the gaze on their photo was same as the gaze that was directed at them. And it caused embarrassment, shyness, and nervousness. The experience was influ-enced by the process of taking the portrait. Being exhibited was an experience of being evaluated and recognized through the gazes of others.

Poem: Emergent Properties

This poem, inspired by a photographic exhibition on the Ethiopian ‘forest churches’, invites the reader to consider the intricately interconnected nature of Christian life.

PHOTOGRAPHY FESTIVALS AND FAIRS: SHOWCASING NEW IDEAS IN PHOTOGRAPHY

This article assumes that photographic festivals and fairs can play a role in articulating and promoting new ideas in photography. As exhibition spaces, these public events guide and showcase new trends, perspectives and practices in the art of photography. They not only permit exhibiting the variety of photographic art forms, innovative ideas and the most cutting-edge practices, but also serve as a catalyst that stimulates the ongoing evolution of photography in a socio-cultural setting. Firstly, using specific examples of photo festivals and photo fairs, the article examines how they can showcase and guide new ideas in photography. It further explores how they reflect and foster innovation in photographic artistic thought by demonstrating recent trends in photography, capturing new socio-cultural tendencies, and reinterpreting iconic works. Furthermore, the article investigates how these photography exhibition spaces enable communication and exchanges between artists, curators, and viewers. Festivals and fairs present both the author and the viewer with new ways of understanding the art of photography and offer them new experience. The role of the viewer changes from passive to active: now, by participating in the discussion of the artwork, reflecting on it, the viewer becomes a catalyst for innovation. Finally, photo festivals and fairs have led to a transformation in the ways of viewing and creating, and changed the roles of viewer, artist and curator. Through innovative ways of exhibiting, such as virtual reality or multimedia technologies, they have stimulated the development of ways of viewing and understanding photography artworks. Hence, in this article, we delve into photography festivals and fairs as a sort of window through which we can observe the emergence, evolution, and propagation of new concepts, artforms, and practices of photography. At the same time, they foster innovative ideas and play a key role in the development of means of visual artistic expression and photographic practice. The objective of this study is to provide scholars, practitioners, and photography enthusiasts with a deeper understanding of photographic festivals and fairs and to shed light on how this medium can be used to develop and innovate the art of photography. Hopefully, this article will provide a new perspective and understanding of photography research and practice and contribute to the further development of the art of photography in the 21st century.

“I’m New to This”: Navigating Digitally Mediated Photovoice Methods to Enhance Research With Older Adults

The COVID-19 pandemic forced a shift in long established participatory visual qualitative methods. Some researchers adapted photovoice— which traditionally happens in-person—and used technology to connect with participants referred to as “digitally mediated photovoice”. Collective knowledge about best practices for digitally mediated photovoice to support and enhance research with older adults is in its infancy. Thus, to advance the field, we describe our approach to digitally mediated photovoice with older adults for a study in Vancouver, Canada. We explore participant and researcher reflections with data generated during three sessions over two-and-a-half years during the COVID-19 pandemic. The first two virtual interview sessions used photo elicitation, and the third session was an in-person interactive photography exhibition. We identified three central benefits to using digitally mediated photovoice. This approach 1. built rapport through the shared experience of navigating technology; 2. allowed a rich exchange of information despite physical distancing; and 3. facilitated opportunity for participants to exercise their agency. As we consider constraints for in-person data collection, digitally mediated photovoice may offer an avenue to establish mutually beneficial researcher-participant relationships with older adults. We add to the growing body of literature that addresses how qualitative researchers incorporate technology into the research process to reshape how we understand intimacy and access.

‘The American Look’: The transformation of women’s sportswear in 1930s and 1940s America

This article will suggest that the American sportswear style reflects the unique historical and cultural influences on American dress from the birth of the new democratic nation in the eighteenth century to the dominance of New York City’s ready-to-wear industry in the 1950s. Focusing on the key decades of the 1930s and 1940s, this article will explore the marketing campaign of Dorothy Shaver, vice-president of the luxury retailer Lord & Taylor, who in 1932 coined the phrase ‘the American Look’ to promote American fashion designers’ collections. The legacy of sportswear designer Claire McCardell, arguably the best known of the New York-based ready-to-wear designers will be examined. McCardell’s combination of nostalgic American prairie style with the use of everyday workwear fabrics of cotton plaid, denim, wool and jersey created an unpretentious casual American style based on comfort, ease and flexibility, which is reflected today in the contemporary American ready-to-wear market. The article will maintain that the promotion of the American Look via photographic shoots, magazines, advertisements, visual merchandising, exhibition and film influenced the style and taste of dress that the female American body ought to ‘fit into’. This style, it will be argued, encouraged the development of a cultural memory of American dress by establishing a material link between national identity and clothing.

EDUCAÇÃO ANTIRRACISTA PARA O ENSINO DE ARTES: ESTUDO DE CASO EM UMA INSTITUIÇÃO DE EDUCAÇÃO PROFISSIONAL E TECNOLÓGICA

This article presents a successful practice proposed for arts teaching. The objective was to work on the valorization of black identity in a perspective of anti-racist formation. As a methodology, workshops for free embroidery practice were created using ideograms from Adinkra Symbols. The results were obtained considering the embroidered production made on the creation and presentation images workshops on art and photography exhibitions, as well as, analysis made through free interviews with the participants. We concluded that the activity exceeded expectations in the sense of expected learning; considering the acquisition of notions about a technique, the socialization of experience and acquisition of knowledge about the Adinkra culture. The whole practice proved effective as anti-racist education tool and in attention to the use of law 10639.

The duration of To Be(Hold) in Revere: An Exhibition of Historical Photographs of People with Intellectual Disability

In this article, I discuss my curation of a photographic exhibition of people with intellectual disability (PWID) who were institutionalised at the Grahamstown Lunatic Asylum, from 1890 to 1920. The exhibition titled, To Be(Hold) in Revere, aimed to display affirmative photographs and humanising stories of PWID obtained from the Asylum's casebooks. The Sites of Conscience movement influenced the exhibition's aim. The movement seeks to recover the agency and personhood of those who lived at a site of human suffering in order to establish a collective memory of their voices and experiences. This article details my curatorial approach; it provides a telling of the life stories of seven patients and outlines how I adopted the principles of the Sites of Conscience movement in facilitating exhibition walkabouts with the public. A key facet of the walkabouts was encouraging the public to witness the personhood of the Asylum's PWID, as well as to explore the current issues faced by today's PWID and advocate for their human rights.

An African Looks at America: Picturing Racial Integration for Africa, 1956–68

The global tour of Edward Steichen’s 1955 photographic exhibition The Family of Man, sponsored by the United States Information Agency (USIA), has long been viewed as the defining moment for the medium’s engagement in US Cold War diplomacy and propaganda. Yet the attention garnered by this single exhibition has served to obscure an extensive programme of photographic diplomacy developed by the USIA during the late 1950s and early 1960s, and largely overlooked by photographic scholarship. One strand of this programme was shaped by the twin concerns of racial conflict at home and decolonisation in Africa and Asia. As the US government cultivated audiences in the newly independent nations of the emerging Third World, it became clear that it would need to adapt its message. Racial integration became a pervasive theme in the agency’s photographic output as it sought to picture America for its international audiences and visually refute accusations that the USA was an inherently racist society. In contrast to studies of US propaganda output of the early 1950s, which have suggested a limited repertoire for the representation of African Americans, the photographic records for this period provide evidence that the USIA paid close attention to the micro-politics of racial interaction and endeavoured to create a richer and more complete set of representations. Seen in the context of the time, the carefully choreographed portrayals of interracial interaction that emerge from the USIA archives are remarkable, if always highly partial and selective.

Implementation of Virtual Reality for Photography Exhibitions

Art exhibitions are one way to communicate a work of art while displaying creations that can be enjoyed by visitors. However, it takes a very high cost to make a good exhibition hall, and many people are too lazy to go to the exhibition if it is just to look around. In this era of technology 4.0, many new innovations have emerged in human life, one of which is virtual reality. Virtual reality is increasingly being used as an alternative to visiting a place without having to come there directly. This research aims to create an Android system using virtual reality that provides an experience to users viewing works virtually. Virtual reality prepares a representative space to display works and also does not need to incur high costs while still providing quality and complete information from exhibition speakers. This research was built using Blender and Unity. In the application design analysis, there are four main stages: (1) analysis, (2) design, (3) product development, and (4) product testing. The results of the assessment conducted by the virtual reality lecturer obtained an average result of 89%. In addition, the results of trials for students obtained an average percentage of 94% and were included in the very good category. The results of this study show that AR has indeed proven feasible to be used as a learning medium in introducing photographic works with 2D and 3D Animation, and therefore the potential to make exhibitions in VR is also used for other courses and learning. The result of this research is that an Android-based virtual reality system can simulate the exhibition of artwork.

РУССКИЙ СЕВЕР. ОБРАЗЫ РОССИИ В ФОТОКОЛЛЕКЦИИ Д.Н. АНУЧИНА

An exhibition of photographs from the collection of Dmitry Nikolayevich Anuchin, organized jointly with the Earth Science Museum of Lomonosov Moscow State University, has opened in the Maritime Exhibition Center of the Museum of the World Ocean in Svetlogorsk, Kaliningrad region. Dmitry Nikolayevich Anuchin (1843-1923) was a famous Russian anthropologist, ethnographer, archaeologist, geographer, and museologist. D.N. Anuchin was active in spreading geographical knowledge and creating a Russian university geography school, and educated a great number of students. Dmitry Nikolayevich was at the origin of the creation of the Geographical Museum of Moscow University, which he headed for more than 20 years. The exhibition shows about 70 prints of photographs of the Russian North of the late 19th-early 20th centuries from D.N. Anuchin’s photo collection. A significant part of the collection (more than 3.5 thousand units) is now stored in the funds of the Earth Science Museum of the Lomonosov Moscow State University.

Mnemonic interventions: Memory and transitional justice at a Uruguayan prison-mall

In 1986, Uruguay’s maximum security Punta Carretas Prison closed following a riot in the context of Uruguay’s transition from authoritarian civic-military dictatorship (1973-1985) to constitutional democracy. In 1994, the building reopened as Punta Carretas Shopping, one of Uruguay’s most luxurious shopping malls. In this article, I show how two site-specific installations at the prison-mall—the temporary photography exhibition, Brava: Memoria fotográfica de Punta de las Carretas (2019) and the permanent memorial installation, Memorial Ex Penal de Punta Carretas (2020)—put forth distinct versions of the past to shape the memory of Punta Carretas. I call these mnemonic interventions because they interrupt the shopping trip and divert attention away from leisure and consumption toward remembrance, provoking the shopper to engage with the space of the former prison and its history. I demonstrate how different stakeholders struggle over memory in Uruguay in a context in which impunity undermines efforts toward truth and justice. Mnemonic interventions at Punta Carretas Shopping reveal the ongoing struggle over how the past should be remembered in Uruguay decades after the transition to democracy, showing the impact of recent transitional justice policies to demarcate sites of memory and resistance.