Framer Framed

Symposium: Photographs, Colonial Legacy and Museums in Contemporary European Culture

In her discussion of the making, the meaning and the value of photographs, Elizabeth Edwards calls photographs ‘a site of intersecting histories,(…) because they share experiences and yet have their own trajectories, encompassing sameness and difference’ (E. Edwards, Raw Histories. Photographs, Anthropology and Museums. Oxford/New York: Berg, 2001, p. 83).

The seminar (Utrecht University, 25 maart 2011) will explore this approach to photographs with a focus on photographs that originate in colonial times. What kind of ‘sites’ do they make today; what happens when histories intersect, what is colonial about the photographs? How can we relate Postcolonial Studies to colonial photographs? Participants are encouraged to bring their own examples of photographs to the meeting.

The symposium is organised within the Transnational Memories research line of the Utrecht focus area Cultures & Identities in collaboration with the HERA research programme Photographs, Colonial Legacy and Museums in Contemporary European Culture (PhotoCLEC). The Transnational Memories series of lectures and events adopts a long-term and comparative perspective on cultural remembrance, focusing on memorial dynamics outside and across national frameworks as well as conflicts and transfers at the interfaces between groups.

Speakers
Introduction by Susan Legêne (VU University Amsterdam)
Followed by discussions on particular (colonial) photographs by:
Matthew Mead (London College of Communication, University of the Arts)
Hilde Nielssen (Institute for Linguistic, Literary and Aesthetic Studies, University of Bergen, Norway)
Wim Manuhutu (VU University Amsterdam)
Paulus Bijl (Utrecht University)

Links

• UTRECHT UNIVERSITY