NTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OF PHOTOGRAPHY STUDIES
Photography and Site – Routes, Cartographies and Drifts

Colégio dos Jesuítas, Universidade da Madeira, Funchal, Portugal
December 4-6, 2023

The International Conference of Photography Studies to be held on 4-6
December 2023 at Colégio dos Jesuítas, Universidade da Madeira, Funchal,
Portugal, invites proposals on Photography and Site – Routes,
Cartographies and Drifts.

An initiative of Secretaria Regional de Turismo e Cultura and Direção
Regional da Cultura / Museu de Fotografia da Madeira - Atelier
Vicente's, with the support of ICNOVA - Instituto de Comunicação da Nova
/ EVAM Observatory and the University of Madeira / Departamento de Arte
e Design.

The conference aims to explore the ways in which photography has been
used to map and represent territories, as well as documenting journeys,
migrations and movements across landscapes. In addition to designating
spatially defined territories, the notion of “site” has been associated
with metaphorical and metonymic meanings, with historical, identity and
relational dimensions, which replace or, at least, superimpose this more
essential geographic dimension.

Moreover, this overcoming of a more proper territorial circumscription
is implicit in studies that relate photographic representation to
geographic imagination, where photography emerges as a particularly apt
means of defining spatiality. In this sense, from the digital revolution
of the 21st century itself, where photography is inscribed as a plural
practice and hybrid technique, the reconfiguration of this concept and
others in its proximity, such as: that of lieux de mémoire (Pierre
Nora), that of non-place (Marc Augé), or heterotopia (Michel Foucault).
At the same time, we highlight the role of photography in artistic
practices in different disciplinary areas, which privilege notions such
as wandering, drifting and chance, namely, through the act of walking,
either as an object or as a methodology or work process.

The deadline for the present call for proposals is 15th of June 2023. We
invite proposals for 20-min presentations in Portuguese and English.

We welcome proposals that engage with a range of topics, including but
not limited to:

* Site / Landscape: landscape as an autonomous photographic genre that
asserted itself almost immediately since the beginning of the medium
in relation to the idea of place; photography's ability to
represent, emblematize or reify the idea of place, for example, in
its association with the practice of tourism, in the case of place
branding and in specific formats such as postcards; the role of
photography in documenting human intervention in the natural world,
whether in legitimising certain constructions/ventures or through an
ecological critique.

* Art, paths and drifts: authorial processes or practices that refer
to thoughts on territory through notions of trajectory or
established path, or, on the contrary, of drift or unpredictable
wandering, without a charted destination; the mobilising of
photography in the act of walking.

* Architecture, Urban photography and the flâneur: uses of photography
in capturing the modern urban experience of the beginning of the
20th century or in a postmodern experience of the city; relationship
between the technique and posture of the flâneur of wandering and
observing a hectic reality.

* Regional photographers: routes of Madeiran photographers, or with a
practice in the Madeiran Archipelago, and approach to their
trajectories and works; representativeness of their images in their
relationship with different sites; photographic representation and
Madeiran identities: insular, atlantic, macaronesian.

* Digital media and new cartography: an approach to contemporary
photography as a technique intertwined with other digital media in
the visualisation of cartography (point clouds, machine/satellite
images, drones, road trip photographic tradition, etc.); artistic
practices that mobilise images generated by surveillance
technologies, subverting functions and/or expanding potentialities.

* Photographic mapping of transits and exchanges: projects that,
similarly to the role attributed to photography by Allan Sekula in
Fish Story (1988-195) in documenting the economy and distribution of
goods on a global scale, address that same topic today; exploring
the tension between visibility and invisibility of means, routes and
distribution paths on a global scale.

* Photography and migrations: the role of photography and other
technologies in recording the experiences of migrants, refugees and
people on the move; thinking about the ability of photography to
witness and document these experiences, in particular, through the
intersections with sound and moving image.

* Photography and literature: relationship between text and image in
regards to notions of site; the photobook genre as a complement to,
or rather a disruption of, travelogue conventions; use of
photography in literature (novel and essay) as a form of framing or
tension with the notion of (a) place.


Submission guidelines:
– We invite proposals for 20-minute presentations to be submitted
through EasyChair
(https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=photographystudies20) containing:

a) Title and abstract of 400 words maximum (no references), and 3-5
keywords;

b) The name of the author with current affiliation, contact details
(email and mobile) and a short biographical note (around 200 words).

Proposals should be sent no later than 15th of June 2023.
Notification of acceptance will be sent by 24th July 2023.

Other details:
Accepted proposals will be validated through registration, but no fees
shall be applied.
Questions or more informations can be accessed on
https://confief.netlify.app or be
directed to photographyandsiteconference@gmail.com