Curating images

Curating Images will offer an assembly of articles and conversations, with a focus on questions related to different curatorial practices concerning photo-based images: What are the considerations and challenges curator’s face today when they work on photo-based projects, and how do they navigate throughout the constantly changing appearance of the photographic medium? What kind of role do photo-based images occupy in contemporary exhibition- and curatorial practices? How are issues of representations and visibility dealt with? And what kind of mediation takes place while seeking interaction with the audiences? This volume focuses on practical and theoretical perspectives intertwining lens-based images and curation. It offers the reader insights in a wide range of experiences, reflections and opinions from the perspective of curators, artists, scholars and other professionals in the fields who engage with the curation of photo-based images.

The book observes our era defined as post-photographic where the photographic image is no longer a tangible object, but a floating set of data exposed throughout the virtual realm, and the archive material, online imagery, and social media images are moved into and exhibited in gallery spaces, forming amalgamated works of art for which also the traditional roles of the artists and curators and audience are merged. It will also discuss ethical dilemmas such as who is looking at whom, and who has the right to represent someone else and to speak for them? Irrespective of the increase in the volume of photographic images and the diversity of the actions performed with them, the debate on representation is still as relevant today as it has ever been in the history of photography, and today even more pressing in the light of the ongoing processes of decolonisation in our society at large. A further focus point is on nurturing transdisciplinary encounters and site-sensitive artistic investigations with a long-term commitment to the critical discourses on ecology and social sustainability.

The book contains articles and conversations based on first-hand experiences of professionals with different backgrounds working today in the field of photography exhibitions, books, web-based and participatory projects. Within the areas of interest mentioned, the publication deals with practical aspects of photo-curation: How does the flat images function in a white cube environment? What has been the trigger behind the spatial trend in contemporary photographic art installations? What defines the physical form of digitally constructed images? How to work with image/text combinations on the many different platforms available? How could art projects be digitally mediated through their photographic documentation? Why is there a tendency to apply hand and labour-intensive printed techniques in relation to societal issues of today? In short: what are the issues relevant for practices and strategies when curating an exhibition, a book, an online project, or a participatory event while using photographs and visual imagery.

The publication is directed at curators, researchers, artists and students working in contemporary art, photographic art and photography, and all readers interested in contemporary photography culture and media aesthetics. The goal is to create a book with many voices, that reflect and speak about -and for- different roles of photographs in curatorial practices.

Essays: Eszter Erdosi, Kaija Kaitavuori, Lia Carreira, Taru Elfving, Sergio Venezuela Escobedo, Sunil Shah, Delphine Bedel, Daria Tuminas, Anna-Kaisa Rastenberger and Iris Sikking.

Conversations with: Thomas Kuijpers, Salvatore Vitale, He Yining, Poulomi Basu, Giya Makondo Wills, Anna Ehrenstein, Coralie Vogelaar, Rein Desle, and Annet Dekker & Anastasia Mityukova. Others to be confirmed.

Credits
Publisher: Fw:books, Amsterdam
Co-publisher: The Academy of Fine Arts, University of the Arts Helsinki
Supported by Mondriaan Foundation