TalkSeePhotography

October´s TalkSeePhotography is made in partnership with GRAMNet and will see the photographer Alice Myers and Professor Alison Phipps in a conversation which takes a point of departure in Alice Myers work Nothing is Impossible Under the Sun from the refugee camp in Calais.

Since the discussions around what realist or documentary photography actually does to our senses began spreading in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the question of what to do with lived reality represented in photographs has been conflated with the question of truth and how we perceive it. The suggestions of what happens and what we do when viewing victims in such imagery ranged from 'making us indifferent', to the notion that 'looking at or photographing suffering constitutes a re-violation' and as such that agency through photography is impossible. As a result serious analysis of images taken in the indexical present and reality as experience ceased to be part of the critical debates around photography.

The last few weeks have again beyond any doubt proved that photographic representation of suffering can help to shift what we think and feel about something.

The issue is, what do we do after we have started knowing and feeling? How do we make “being in the know about something” make a difference?

Alice Myers combines original, found and given imagery and detail with conversations and collaborations in ways that mine the relationship between subject, author and viewer.

Alison Phipps is Professor of Languages and Intercultural Studies, and Co-Convener of Glasgow Refugee, Asylum and Migration Network (GRAMNET).

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TalkSeePhotography is organised for and by artists working with still imagery. It is a forum for sharing, discussing and looking at photography. The discussions take a point of departure in a presentation images as point of departure. TalkSeePhotogrpahy’s long term aim is to create a platform in Scotland for national and international photography. To achieve this it engages local and international artists and thinkers in presentations, workshops and collaborations.