EUTOPIA Connected Research Community Photography & Dissent: Image Circulations In and Out of Public Discourse

Photography plays a double role towards public discourse. On the one hand, photographic images contribute to the formation of the collective, regional, national or cross-national narratives. On the other hand, they equally become sites of resistance towards these narratives. In the second half of the twentieth century, photography entered a wider circulation through magazine and book publications, exhibitions and museum displays. Through these various ‘lives’, it helped shape ideas around heritage, collective identity and memory. Particularly in periods of public unrest, contestation and conflict, it facilitated civil disobedience and opposition towards the dominant discourse. Photography and dissent Connected Research Community will explore this duality of photography’s operations with respect to public discourse. Focusing on four axes: institutions, photobooks, photo-textual works and exhibitions, the CRC will investigate how photography enters, invigorates, but also insists and upends collective narratives. Specifically, it will pay attention to issues of inequality based distribution. To achieve that, the CRC will develop an interdisciplinary and trans-national approach at an intersection of visual culture, politics, history and literary studies.