Pub Date : 2021-08-08DOI: 10.1080/08949468.2021.1944769
Cathrine Bublatzky
This article explores the installation Documentation by the artist Parastou Forouhar as an (un)sighted migratory archive of memory and forgetting. Operating in the liminal zone between a personal archive and a resourceful public space of memory and resistance, Documentation records in numerous post-produced letters, documents and reports the assassination of the artist’s parents and her efforts to seek justice. Exploring the archive’s transformation into an installation, the article discusses its operationality as an archive-as-activist art with its fractured and performative nature, and draws critical attention to the question of how its borders are manifested in the form of resistance and failure.
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Pub Date : 2021-08-08DOI: 10.1080/08949468.2021.1944770
Simone Pfeifer, Ulfrid Neumann
This article explores portrait images, wedding albums and Facebook images as personal migrant archives. Examining the particular temporalities and the analog–digital materialities of the images, we unfold their significance for the construction of transnational sociality among Senegalese in Berlin and Dakar, from the perspective of women. By addressing distinct audiences the archives of migration are purposefully made (in)visible by their owners, creating gendered and generational “intimate publics.” Foregrounding the notion of the active personal migrant archive, we see the archive as a resource for aspiration and communication among socially close yet geographically distant persons.
{"title":"In/Visible Images of Mobility: Sociality and Analog–Digital Materiality in Personal Archives of Transnational Migration","authors":"Simone Pfeifer, Ulfrid Neumann","doi":"10.1080/08949468.2021.1944770","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08949468.2021.1944770","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores portrait images, wedding albums and Facebook images as personal migrant archives. Examining the particular temporalities and the analog–digital materialities of the images, we unfold their significance for the construction of transnational sociality among Senegalese in Berlin and Dakar, from the perspective of women. By addressing distinct audiences the archives of migration are purposefully made (in)visible by their owners, creating gendered and generational “intimate publics.” Foregrounding the notion of the active personal migrant archive, we see the archive as a resource for aspiration and communication among socially close yet geographically distant persons.","PeriodicalId":44055,"journal":{"name":"Visual Anthropology","volume":"34 1","pages":"317 - 338"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-08-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/08949468.2021.1944770","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44835305","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-08-08DOI: 10.1080/08949468.2021.1944777
Alma-Elisa Kittner
The article considers different archives of migration from various terminological and conceptual aspects, such as the distinction between archive and collection. Moreover, an attempt is undertaken to distinguish between objects of flight and objects of migration, examining their varying representations in the institutions as well as their specific relationship to authorship and ownership. Focus is placed on the media forms employed to show the objects. Finally, the article analyzes different approaches to archives and collections of migration in various disciplines.
{"title":"Objects of Migration: On Archives and Collections, Archivists and Collectors","authors":"Alma-Elisa Kittner","doi":"10.1080/08949468.2021.1944777","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08949468.2021.1944777","url":null,"abstract":"The article considers different archives of migration from various terminological and conceptual aspects, such as the distinction between archive and collection. Moreover, an attempt is undertaken to distinguish between objects of flight and objects of migration, examining their varying representations in the institutions as well as their specific relationship to authorship and ownership. Focus is placed on the media forms employed to show the objects. Finally, the article analyzes different approaches to archives and collections of migration in various disciplines.","PeriodicalId":44055,"journal":{"name":"Visual Anthropology","volume":"34 1","pages":"385 - 404"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-08-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/08949468.2021.1944777","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45771276","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-08-08DOI: 10.1080/08949468.2021.1944773
Almut Goldhahn, Massimo Ricciardo
The essay focuses on an unsighted archive of migration that preserves numerous discarded objects from undocumented migration into Europe. This “trash” was recovered and stored by the artists Massimo Ricciardo and Thomas Kilpper, for whom the objects signify one of the most urgent societal challenges of our time. In the installation “Objects of Migration—Photo Objects of Art History,” Ricciardo introduced some of these objects into the physical space of the Photothek of the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz to engage in a dialog with the photographical documents of this art-historical photo archive. That physical encounter between two completely different archives and objects raised questions about the significance and value of such objects of migration and their archive in regard to cultural memory and temporalities of cultural heritage.
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Pub Date : 2021-08-08DOI: 10.1080/08949468.2021.1944766
Fiona Siegenthaler, Cathrine Bublatzky
This special issue of Visual Anthropology takes a close look at (un)sighted migratory archives and archives of migration. Acknowledging migration as part of social practice and collective memory, it highlights the relevance of migratory archives for individual and collective subjectivities. With a transversal perspective across the fields of art, anthropology and social activism, the contributions analyze the complexities of power relations, spatial and temporal dynamics, media practices, and meaning production involved in the making, maintaining, contemplation, appropriation, destruction and loss of such archives. Rethinking methodological and theoretical approaches, these engage with archives as spaces of encounter and resistance in a liminal zone of visibility and invisibility.
{"title":"(Un)Sighted Archives of Migration—Spaces of Encounter and Resistance: An Introduction","authors":"Fiona Siegenthaler, Cathrine Bublatzky","doi":"10.1080/08949468.2021.1944766","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08949468.2021.1944766","url":null,"abstract":"This special issue of Visual Anthropology takes a close look at (un)sighted migratory archives and archives of migration. Acknowledging migration as part of social practice and collective memory, it highlights the relevance of migratory archives for individual and collective subjectivities. With a transversal perspective across the fields of art, anthropology and social activism, the contributions analyze the complexities of power relations, spatial and temporal dynamics, media practices, and meaning production involved in the making, maintaining, contemplation, appropriation, destruction and loss of such archives. Rethinking methodological and theoretical approaches, these engage with archives as spaces of encounter and resistance in a liminal zone of visibility and invisibility.","PeriodicalId":44055,"journal":{"name":"Visual Anthropology","volume":"34 1","pages":"283 - 295"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-08-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44083990","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-08-08DOI: 10.1080/08949468.2021.1944775
Gaby Fierz
Globalized cities, like Basel with its pharmaceutical industry, are shaped by migration. At the same time migration, one of the driving forces of urbanization, scarcely surfaces in public discourse. Due to a dominant codified remembrance politics that unfolds along the lines of national discourse, official archives and museums fail to integrate evidence and objects testifying to migration into their collections. This article presents three case studies of another type of archive—namely the Özlem Fotostudio, The House of Resistance and Solidarity, and Novartis and the Papageienhäuser (Parrot Blocks)—all of which were studied in a research project conducted in Basel in preparation for the exhibition "Çok Basel! Transnational Memoryscapes Switzerland—Turkey,” during May 3–June 30, 2019. This article challenges the common understanding of an archive as a static form of storage. It shows how photographs, as triggers of memory and storytelling, can be interrogated and function as apt tools to make migratory archives, hidden memories, and narratives of migrant communities visible.
{"title":"The Blank Spots: Making Migratory Archives Visible by Exploring Photographs","authors":"Gaby Fierz","doi":"10.1080/08949468.2021.1944775","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08949468.2021.1944775","url":null,"abstract":"Globalized cities, like Basel with its pharmaceutical industry, are shaped by migration. At the same time migration, one of the driving forces of urbanization, scarcely surfaces in public discourse. Due to a dominant codified remembrance politics that unfolds along the lines of national discourse, official archives and museums fail to integrate evidence and objects testifying to migration into their collections. This article presents three case studies of another type of archive—namely the Özlem Fotostudio, The House of Resistance and Solidarity, and Novartis and the Papageienhäuser (Parrot Blocks)—all of which were studied in a research project conducted in Basel in preparation for the exhibition \"Çok Basel! Transnational Memoryscapes Switzerland—Turkey,” during May 3–June 30, 2019. This article challenges the common understanding of an archive as a static form of storage. It shows how photographs, as triggers of memory and storytelling, can be interrogated and function as apt tools to make migratory archives, hidden memories, and narratives of migrant communities visible.","PeriodicalId":44055,"journal":{"name":"Visual Anthropology","volume":"34 1","pages":"368 - 384"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-08-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/08949468.2021.1944775","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47111852","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-05-27DOI: 10.1080/08949468.2021.1908126
L. Pauwels
“Visual Expression,” understood here as the purposeful application of formal parameters of a medium to produce meaning, constitutes a crucial element of a (more) visual social science that seeks not only to produce visual records of culture and society, but also strives to communicate disciplinary informed/grounded findings, insights and arguments in a partly visual and multimodal manner. This article discusses and exemplifies the pivotal role of “expression” and “expressiveness” as closely intertwined with aesthetics and the predicative power of (visual) “form” in visual research and communication.
{"title":"“Visual Expressiveness” in Camera-Based Research and Communication","authors":"L. Pauwels","doi":"10.1080/08949468.2021.1908126","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08949468.2021.1908126","url":null,"abstract":"“Visual Expression,” understood here as the purposeful application of formal parameters of a medium to produce meaning, constitutes a crucial element of a (more) visual social science that seeks not only to produce visual records of culture and society, but also strives to communicate disciplinary informed/grounded findings, insights and arguments in a partly visual and multimodal manner. This article discusses and exemplifies the pivotal role of “expression” and “expressiveness” as closely intertwined with aesthetics and the predicative power of (visual) “form” in visual research and communication.","PeriodicalId":44055,"journal":{"name":"Visual Anthropology","volume":"34 1","pages":"234 - 244"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/08949468.2021.1908126","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45455815","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-05-27DOI: 10.1080/08949468.2021.1908110
Lauren Walden
The Surrealist journals Documents (1929–1930) and Minotaure (1933–1939) sought to overturn the eurocentric hegemony of art history, especially the notion that Greece had formed the original cradle of civilization. Due to close-knit linkages with anthropologists in these periodicals, the Surrealists’ understanding of indigenous art was far from superficial; nor was it limited to mere aesthetic borrowings, as presented in William Rubin’s controversial “Primitivism” exhibition of 1984. The diverse range of African sculptures in both French journals testify to a much wider influence upon Surrealist thought, often aligned with uneasy but core concepts of universality, freedom of the spirit, the occult, automatism and non-national limits. As such, the original use-value of sculptures within their indigenous African cultures will be interrogated beyond purely aesthetic concerns, rearticulated through the prism of core Surrealist ideas to delineate both genuine resonances and intentional deviations. Although the Surrealists attempted to attenuate the colonial legacy of Western art history, the movement seems to rest in a state of exception à propos the provenance of sculpture featured in their periodicals and personal collections. Indeed, Minotaure published Marcel Griaule’s Mission Dakar-Djibouti and its treasure-trove of looted African wares which would become the property of France. Ultimately, photomechanical reproduction of these sculptures did not satiate the colonial powers’ lust to possess, nor that of avant-garde collectors. The original, “auratic” object still reigned supreme, creating a troubled complicity between Surrealism and the ideology of colonialism that they vehemently protested against.
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Pub Date : 2021-05-27DOI: 10.1080/08949468.2021.1908196
W. Gunn
This book is an outcome of a three-year research project called TRACES that was funded in 2016 by the European Commission, as part of the Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme. The project set out to investigate challenges and possibilities of transmitting contentious pasts to public audiences and the role cultural contentious heritage plays in contemporary Europe. One of the project’s aims, while transmitting contentious cultural heritage to public(s), was to involve modes of creative co-production (CCP) within research practices. Researchers contributing to the volume propose that, by changing research practices, potentials exist to instigate a process of reflexive Europeanization, whereby the European imagination is shaped by self-awareness, ongoing critical reflection, and dialogs across a multiplicity of methodological positions. This research project brought together a multidisciplinary team of artists, anthropologists, archaeologists, and architects to investigate contentious cultural heritages through collaboration and experimentation. Contentious cultural heritage studies have gained momentum in recent years. A key figure responsible for shaping and influencing these studies is the anthropologist Sharon Macdonald. Her research considers heritage as a relational process whereby memory, multiple identities and history are not fixed in time; but rather past, present, and future become interwoven through shifting social relations and multitemporal practices (Macdonald 2013, 2021). Underpinning TRACES researchers’ inquiry is the concept of CCP. CCP in the TRACES project required a diversity of research partners to work on specific cases of contentious heritage toward providing participatory public interfaces. Theoretical inquiry and artistic practice-based investigations aim to open lines of inquiry for cultural institutions and museums to engage with contentious cultural heritage and find a means to inform future formation of European identities. Research methodologies were deployed analyzing challenges, opportunities, and practices inherent in transmitting difficult pasts and heritages to different audiences. The edited volume is the result of collaborative efforts of many research partners in the TRACES network, which comprises universities, museums, independent research organizations, and NGOs working in various locations across Europe. The volume has 13 chapters presenting research done by CCPs in Romania, Poland, Slovenia, Austria,
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Pub Date : 2021-05-27DOI: 10.1080/08949468.2021.1908185
Pamila Gupta
The idea of a photographic image as “unfixed” is intriguing, full of possibility. Jennifer Bajorek takes this idea as her starting point for reading a range of historic images—studio portraits, popular magazines (Bingo specifically), advertisements, photojournalism, bureaucratic ID cards, and political photography, from the West African countries of Senegal and Benin. All these images are both beautiful and beautifully laid out in her monograph. The book is at the same time a fruitful project committed to decolonizing knowledge production around what old photographs produced during the second half of the longue dur ee of the 20th century can potentially mean, say and imagine for their subjects and for subsequent viewers (including those persons in the images, their future descendants and a global “we”) in the here-and-now of the 21st century. It is a form of ethnographic play in the image archive, and theory-making from and grounded in West Africa, two exciting endeavors that Bajorek urges scholars of African photography to participate in, and rightly so. The book includes small acts of decolonization, for example, that of changing West to “west” Africa (xiii), since the former is associated with the AOF (l’AfriqueOccidentale française), the French colonial administration that included Senegal, Benin, and six other colonies, which ended in 1960. Such writerly steps make possible a kind of sustained anticolonial reading and gesture to the potential of photography to do the hard work of decolonization. Bajorek smartly suggests (18) that a second “scramble for Africa” is currently taking place, more than a century after the Berlin Conference of 1884–85 (also known as the West Africa Conference), an event that saw rival colonial powers carving out niches across the subcontinent; only this time around it is curators and collectors swooping in to grab up and discover unknown African collections and artists to sell on the international art market. This second scramble for Africa then makes the urgency of visual research like hers that much more timely and important for self-determined decolonial preservation. The archive of images Bajorek unearths showcases human vulnerability at its sensorial best; emergent themes of belonging, affiliation, worldliness, and affect are just a sample few that help render the democratic power of this set of arresting (and mostly black-and-white) images produced at the tapered end of colonialism and through to the cusp and aftermath of colonial independence (1950s–80s). Photographs also effect change, a point not lost on Bajorek for
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