In this talk we focus our lens on the imperial image, and the technologies and spaces that produce them. We will introspect into our agency in challenging them, and question the possibility of surpassing their imperial origins.
We ask: What are images? Are they moments of history or are they active operative structures? How do we position ourselves in relation to them? What becomes of our interpretation of them?
Ariella Aïsha Azoulay is a professor at Brown University, and is an expert in visual culture and photography. Her research focuses on how visual mediums can narrate history; specifically, the history of political regimes and zones of conflict. One of her renowned books Potential History: Unlearning Imperialism (2019) focuses on photography’s active and operative, not simply observational, role in the history of imperialism. The Palestinian struggle has been her primary case study, where she positions her teachings within the context of colonisation, going beyond the ideological framework of its portrayed history as a “conflict” between two national entities.
She is an author, filmmaker, art curator, theorist of photography and visual culture.
IMAGE: Folded photograph of the expulsion of Palestinians from Ramle, 1948. From Ariella Aïsha Azoulay’s exhibition “Potential History,” 2012, various locations
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