Editorial

Abstract

This journal, now in its 14 year of publication, continues to seek to construct new agendas for theorising photography as a heterogeneous medium that is changing in an ever more dynamic relation to all aspects of contemporary culture and aims to do so through investigating the contemporary condition and currency of the photographic within local and global contexts. It was in this spirit that we held the first photographies conference (London, 2017) on ‘Critical Issues in Photography today’, with papers subsequently published as a special issue (Vol. 11: 2/3, 2018). At that event, we were asked whether the conference might become a regular occurrence and, if so, whether we might consider basing the next one in Asia. As is clear from this collection of papers from our subsequent (second) conference on ‘Photography in Asia’, the response was a resounding yes. Dr Oh Soonhwa, Associate Professor of Photography at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, who is a member of the journal’s advisory board and was participating in the London event, generously offered to co-host an event, thereby opening possibilities for discussing photography from a different place, both literally and metaphorically. As co-editors of the journal, we have been keen to ‘de-centre’ the focus to include work and thinking that is beyond the usual Anglo-American emphasis; hence, we have sought to advance, a more truly global dimension. The aim is not to simply substitute one cultural paradigm of thought for another, to engage in what some might describe as a kind of a ‘theoretical’ or ‘critical tourism’, but to consider the cultural interactions – and distinctions – within the globalised production and circulation of photographic imagery across all arenas, and between what the global and local: north and south, as well as east and west. We know now, of course, that globalization (and one of its valuable tools, the globalization of photography) has produced many great inequalities and this is probably true of photography criticism and theory too. The title of the conference, Photography in Asia, was somewhat open, intended to invite the question: what is it, where is it, how, when and why? As can be seen from the conference programme, included towards the end of this issue, responses were wide-ranging. Proposals were organised into themed sessions, thereby articulating dialogues between papers in each panel. We hoped that the condensing together of varying conceptual approaches might contribute to the emergences of new agendas that in turn provoke us to re-examine our own centres of attention. All contributors were invited to submit a revised version of their paper for inclusion in this special issue based on the conference; most speakers chose to do so. The schedule included six thematic panels: Ecology-Images; Archival Memories; Pictorial-Material; No Printed Matter; Form-Circulation; History-Significance. See the programme reproduced at the end of this issue. Within this, some presentations drew extensively on archive research, some focussed on more theoretical questions, contemporary issues and, and new developments, for instance, exhibitions, festivals