Projects per year
Abstract
Historical photography - ‘the living image of a dead thing’, in Barthes’s phrase - is often overlooked in discussions of cultural heritage decolonisation. Focusing on a little-known collection of historical photography of China held in Belfast which was the subject of a Sino-Irish research partnership, this paper explores how the multiplicious histories of coloniality in both Ireland and China present possibilities for historical and curatorial decolonisation of photography beyond colonial binaries.
Like many such collections, the photography accumulated by the Irishman Robert Hart during his half-century as a British imperial administrator in China resists easy categorisation, and sits uneasily between coloniser and colonised, Europe and Asia, native and foreign, imperial and anti-imperial. Drawing on work by Igor Kopytoff, Arjun Appadurai, Malek Alloula, Elizabeth Edwards and James Hevia among others, this paper takes an object-biography perspective to this collection. This approach understands photographs not as the products of a single moment of artistic creation, but instead as the results of social processes connecting the people, objects and places in the frame with their wider world, as well as with the circumstances that led to the creation of each image.
Decentring questions of provenance in favour of a broader understanding of creation and dissemination allows the photographs to be recentred within the wider heritage of both China and Ireland. This approach also highlights the inadequacy of a narrowly capitalist or legalistic understanding of heritage ownership, raising broader issues of moral rights in photography and of cultural restitution beyond standard understandings of illicit appropriation. The paper finally considers both the potential and the limitations of reproductions and digitisation of historical photography in the context of debates about cultural repatriation of heritage artefacts.
Like many such collections, the photography accumulated by the Irishman Robert Hart during his half-century as a British imperial administrator in China resists easy categorisation, and sits uneasily between coloniser and colonised, Europe and Asia, native and foreign, imperial and anti-imperial. Drawing on work by Igor Kopytoff, Arjun Appadurai, Malek Alloula, Elizabeth Edwards and James Hevia among others, this paper takes an object-biography perspective to this collection. This approach understands photographs not as the products of a single moment of artistic creation, but instead as the results of social processes connecting the people, objects and places in the frame with their wider world, as well as with the circumstances that led to the creation of each image.
Decentring questions of provenance in favour of a broader understanding of creation and dissemination allows the photographs to be recentred within the wider heritage of both China and Ireland. This approach also highlights the inadequacy of a narrowly capitalist or legalistic understanding of heritage ownership, raising broader issues of moral rights in photography and of cultural restitution beyond standard understandings of illicit appropriation. The paper finally considers both the potential and the limitations of reproductions and digitisation of historical photography in the context of debates about cultural repatriation of heritage artefacts.
Original language | English |
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Publication status | Published - 28 Oct 2022 |
Event | Modern Heritage in the Anthropocene Symposium - The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, London, United Kingdom Duration: 26 Oct 2022 → 28 Oct 2022 https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/architecture/events/2022/oct/modern-heritage-anthropocene-symposium-0 |
Conference
Conference | Modern Heritage in the Anthropocene Symposium |
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Country/Territory | United Kingdom |
City | London |
Period | 26/10/2022 → 28/10/2022 |
Internet address |
Fingerprint
Dive into the research topics of 'A decentred lens: decolonising historical photography between China and Ireland'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.Projects
- 1 Finished
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R1992HAP: Reframing the Networks and Visualities of Imperial War Photography: Felice Beato in Asia
Reisz, E. (PI)
14/12/2018 → 31/12/2023
Project: Research
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Photoanthropocene: the decentered lens of colonial photography
Reisz, E., Jan 2024, In: Curator: The Museum Journal. 67, 1, p. 101-117 17 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open AccessFile38 Downloads (Pure) -
A decentered lens: colonial photography and the right to the real
Reisz, E., 12 May 2023.Research output: Contribution to conference › Paper
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A decentred lens: decolonising historical photography between China and Ireland
Reisz, E., 30 Aug 2023, Proceedings: Modern Heritage in the Anthropocene: Global Symposium 2022. Denison, E. & Vawda, S. (eds.). London: Modern Heritage in the Anthropocene (MoHoA), p. 249-254 6 p. (MoHoA: Modern Heritage of the Anthropocene Conference Proceedings).Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution
Open AccessFile