Monday 9/12/2024
CREAM’s Lucy Soutter and Duncan Wooldridge (SODA, Manchester Metropolitan University) are pleased to announce the publication of a co-edited anthology, The Routledge Companion to Global Photographies, which has emerged from the activities of the Global Photographies Network. The culmination of an 18-month AHRC Networking Grant, the volume draws together 53 contributors in 36 chapters clustered around six themes: photography’s response to climate change, decolonial practices, network formation, new materialities, gender and sexual identities, and the role of photobooks. Through funding from UKRI, the book is open access and may be downloaded by chapter or in whole from the Routledge website.
In response to widespread demand for more knowledge and insight about contemporary photography beyond Western centres of production and dissemination, the book provides a layered transnational discussion, grounded in dialogue among contributors from diverse locations and contexts. The themes for the sections emerged out of two years of collaborative talks and seminars with a group of photographers, writers, curators, educators and industry professionals, including section editors Svea Josephy and Jean Brundrit (both Michaelis School of Art, University of Cape Town, South Africa), Emese Mucsi (Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center, Budapest), Nina Manganalayagam (HDK Valand, University of Gothenburg), Camilo Paez Vanegas (Universidad de Bogotá Jorge Tadeo Lozano, Bogotá), Rashi Rajguru (Falmouth University), Alejandra Neidermaier (Universidad de Palermo, Buenos Aires), YinHua Chu (National Taipei University of Education) and Zhuang Wubin (independent academic, Singapore).
The Companion draws from this global range of editorial positions to develop its content with polyvocal and de-centering aims, with each section of the book articulating a blend of concerns and positions which emerge from those contexts. For example, the Anthropocene and climate crisis are initially explored from the global South, before opening out to questions where north and south are integrated; the exploration of gender and sexuality is grounded in South America before expanding towards a global fluidity of identities; and the examination of responses to colonialism in Eastern Europe and Arctic indigenous groups unfold into a wider range of local and global concerns. The book combines different modes of writing both to include different voices and to make the material more accessible. Each section includes substantial survey essays introducing key theoretical concerns alongside specific case studies, interviews and panel discussions.
Since its release in August 2024, the book has been featured in international events including book launches, panel discussions and academic seminars at Landskrona Foto Festival, Sweden; Robert Capa Centre for Photography, Budapest; Arts Collider Lab at Korea National University of the Arts, Seoul; and at a Futures photography platform Meet up at PhotoIreland, Dublin. Projected events in 2025 include symposia hosted by Museum Hanmi, Seoul and Alkazi Foundation, New Delhi.
The Global Photographies Network, launched in 2020, is an emerging network of educational institutions and professional organisations dedicated to fostering and expanding transnational discourse in contemporary photography. The network was founded by academics at five Universities in the UK (University College London, University of the Arts London, Falmouth University, Leeds University and The University of Westminster) to produce a more complex picture of how photography is explored internationally. Although launched in the UK with its colonial history, it seeks to produce a network of equal global partners, inside and outside education. Through a programme of talks, seminars, workshops, publications and digital outputs, it offers a horizontal platform for the presentation, discussion and dissemination of ideas around photography and its distinct local photographic cultures. We propose that sharing the photography and photographic debates of multiple cultures in an extended programme of collaborative events and publications can build solidarities amongst international partners, and break down the division of centre/margin, contributing to the decolonizing of Western perception and of photography teaching around the world. We hope that this publication will be a productive contribution to this project, and look forward to the further dialogues, collaborations and projects that may emerge from it. Future activities will explore the international circulation of photographic ideas, practices and practitioners.
