Samtal
Lecture Series: Photography Histories
All upcoming lectures will be held exclusively on Zoom, except for the final session on April 25, when a panel discussion will be held at Fotografiska in Stockholm.
A new historical overview of the history of photography in Sweden is now available. The book Photography Histories, on which this lecture series is based, consists of 32 shorter and longer articles written by 16 different writers, spanning from the early 1800s’ first photographic experiments to today’s digital interfaces.
All upcoming lectures will be held exclusively on Zoom, except for the final session on April 25, when a panel discussion will be held at Fotografiska in Stockholm.
Photographs have been used in parallel in a variety of ways since the early 1800s. At the same time, there are certain emblematic areas of use in each period. During the second half of the 19th century, for example, photography was used in a number of new sciences, where the camera became the objective measuring instrument sought. At the same time, photography became a mass-produced commodity for the first time when portraits of royalty and other celebrities flooded Europe from the 1860s onwards. During the early 20th century, photography became an explicit art form, and a couple of decades into the 20th century, photography began to be used in earnest in news reporting, fashion, and advertising. Such periodic shifts with different, so to speak, photographic focal points are the organizing principle for the book as well as the lecture series.
All these historical events are as much an effect of technical advances as economic, societal, and ideological contexts, and this lecture series includes not only a wide selection of photographers and image types, but also the various actors and institutions that have shaped the histories of photography in Sweden.
The title of the book and lecture series reflects the pluralism of photo history. There is not one photo history in a definite form, but several parallel histories. The book’s title also emphasizes that behind every image there is a story – about techniques, photographers, image practices, and different eras’ perceptions of what an image is.
The lectures take place on Zoom,
https://folkuniversitetet-se.zoom.us/j/98876533593.
Some lectures will also take place on site in Stockholm and Gothenburg.
The lecture series has been developed in collaboration between Anna Näslund Dahlgren, the book’s editor, and Mikael Cronwall, Fotoskolan STHLM. The lectures are organized by Fotoskolan STHLM with generous support from the Folkuniversitetsföreningen and with the participation of Centrum för Fotografi.
You can find the full program here:
