Allan Sekula's Ship of Fools / The Dockers' Museum (2010-2013): (Re)constructing a Phenomenology of Waterfront Labor

This symposium will bring together young researchers, representing various fields of research and various European perspectives.

The history of photography has been the object of increasing interest amongst French academics over the past 40 years, and yet to this day there are relatively few works that consider the political investment inherent in photographic images, uses, and practices. The study of photography has undeniably proven to be a powerful tool for reshaping discourses on art. It could also, and with the same critical drive, address more directly political questions.

Through their interventions, the 8 selected researchers will reflect on the interaction of the photographic and the political beyond simple appropriation of one by the other (politically-committed photography, propaganda, etc…). The practice of photography, considered in this light, is more generally underlain, informed and invested by political categories and practices - be they ideological constructions, questions of visibility and representation, or the various ways in which power is exerted, contested or actualized in cultural practices.

One of the goals of this symposium will thus be to move from looking at photography as a network of political phenomenona to considering the relevance of politicized approaches. We would also like to open a conversation on how contemporary redefinitions of "the political” could enrich and reinvigorate academic approaches to photography.

PROGRAMME

09:15
Accueil des participant.e.s

09:30
Introduction par Jorge Ribalta
Photographies d'auteur et mise en scène des rapports de production

10:00
Jeroen Verbeeck (KU Leuven/LGC)
Allan Sekula's Ship of Fools / The Dockers' Museum (2010-2013): (Re)constructing a Phenomenology of Waterfront Labor

10:30
Agneta Jilek (Academy of Visual Arts of Leipzig/GC)
Picturing the Workers' State: The Representation of Female Work in the Artistic Photography of the 1980s in the GDR. Etudier la photographie en système capitaliste.

11:30
Clément Paradis (UJM Saint-Etienne/CIEREC)
La photographie au risque de la philosophie de la praxis

12:00
Guillaume Blanc (Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne/ED 441/HiCSA)
Capitalisme, morale et photographie dans la France de la croissance (1945-1975)

12:30
Pause déjeuner
Photographie et configurations d'identités collectives

14:00
Karine Chambefort-Kay (Université Paris-Est Créteil/IMAGER)
The framework of social identities as a means to re-politicize discourses on photography. The case of British photography between 1990 and 2010

14:30
Maude Oswald (UNI Lausanne/Section d'histoire et esthétique du cinéma)
"Je, Nous, Ils/Elles", les figures humaines de l'apre?s-Katrina. Repenser les notions de distanciation et d'identification dans la photographie de la Nouvelle-Orleans.
Politiques institutionnelles de la photographie

15:30
Fabienne Huard-Hardy (ENAP Agen/CIRAP)
Tentatives d'analyse du rôle de la photographie dans la réforme pénitentiaire de l'entre-deux-guerres au travers du fonds photographique Henri Manuel conservé à l'Enap (Agen)

16:00
Emmanuelle Bruneel (CELSA Paris-Sorbonne/GRIPIC)
Les représentations de l'altérité dans la communication sur la "diversité" : pour une sémiopolitique des représentations photographiques

16:30
Table-ronde avec tou.te.s les participant.e.s