Vision and Veiling: Photographic Resilience and Sociopolitical Change—Virtual Symposium

This symposium offers a platform for scholarship that investigates the adaptability of photography and photo history in the face of constraints, be them cultural, governmental, institutional, editorial, individual, or otherwise. What do historians, curators, and photographers do when limitations are placed on their work, and what do the limitations themselves reveal about photography? Relatedly, when is restriction, refusal, or withdrawal protective, strategic, or empowering? Finally, what, if anything, has changed about how the medium navigates social or cultural boundaries—what can we learn from how practitioners have done this in the past that might shed light on present-day questions? Interdisciplinary approaches are welcome, and international scholars are encouraged to submit.