Day 2 of the Francophone Research Days

Welcome note + Coffee 

Moderated by Hélène Giannecchini , Assistant Professor of History and Theory of Contemporary Art, University of Lille, CEAC/CRAL, EHESS/CNRS

10:00 am → 10:45 am - What Mad Studies Do to Photography: Toward a Critical Reinterpretation of Psychiatric Images

↘︎ By Fanny Bieth, Ph.D. Candidate in Art History, Université du Québec à Montréal (Canada)

Photography has helped shape medical and social representations of madness. Over the past twenty years or so, critical scholarship on the visual history of psychiatry has grown significantly. It invites us to rethink the images produced in institutions by taking into account the political issues surrounding their creation, circulation, and reception. Is it possible to write a different history of these images—one that pays close attention to the lived experiences and strategies of resistance of the people depicted?

10:45 am → 11:30 am - Photography and Property Regimes in the Nineteenth Century: An Interdisciplinary History

↘︎ By Léa Miranda, Ph. D. Candidate, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (United States)

To take a photograph is to make the subject one’s own. 

With this statement, Susan Sontag highlights the medium’s acquisitive function. This paper traces the genealogy of this phenomenon, from Henry Fox Talbot’s pictorial inventory of chinoiserie in The Pencil of Nature  (1844–1846) in light of Queen Victoria’s real estate acquisitions. She analyzes how photography contributes to the development of a system in which visibility and ownership are linked, while examining forms of resistance to this logic. 

11:30 am → 12:15 pm - Reflecting on Collective Histories of Photography: Photographic Practices in Oregon’s “Lesbian Lands”

↘︎ By Louise Toth, a doctoral student in gender studies at Bordeaux Montaigne University 

Between 1979 and 1985, about twenty women gathered each summer on lesbian-run lands in southern Oregon for the “Ovulars”—feminist and experimental photography workshops. Their archives document collective processes of image-making, in which the methods employed were informed by feminist thought and the rural context. The notion of authorship is rendered fluid, and the medium of photography becomes a tool for building solidarity and community, thereby repositioning the history of photography within a framework of the commons. 

Lunch break

Moderated by Lise Lerichomme , Assistant Professor of Visual Arts, University of Picardie Jules Verne, CRAE

1:45 pm → 2:30 pm - The French-Language Lesbian Press and Its Photographs: Theoretical and Methodological Issues (1982–2000) 

↘︎ By Camille Senoble, contract-based doctoral student in Contemporary Art History, Paris Sorbonne University 

Although the first issues of the French lesbian press contained only a few photographs, their numbers soon began to increase in certain publications. This was particularly true of Lesbia (1982-2012), CLIT 007 (1981-1986), The Grimoire (1987–1995) and Housewife (1996–2000), during which these collections were created. How can we analyze these images, the photographic practices, and the editorial strategies employed? The aim will be to present the methodological challenges involved in compiling these collections: from sifting through magazines in activist archives to consulting private collections held by the women who were active in this press. 

2:30 pm → 3:15 pm - The Language of the Eye

↘︎ Sally Bonn, writer and Ph.D. In Aesthetics, University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne; associate professor of Aesthetics, University of Picardie Jules Verne; CRAE Laboratory

The aim will be to examine, using current examples, what appears to be a new form of the relationship between photography and writing, which will be referred to as The Language of the Eye . When writing permeates the very texture of the image, becoming an inherent quality of the photograph. It can be glimpsed in the practices of certain female photographers (Anne-Lise Broyer, Agnès Geoffray, Constance Nouvel, Estefania Peñafel Loaiza, Aurélie Pétrel). Each explores in her own unique way the evocative and scriptural potential of images; collectively, they map out this constellation.

Coffee break

Moderated by Christian Joschke, professor of contemporary art history at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, co-editor-in-chief of the journal Transbordeur. Photography, History, Society

↘︎ Aurianne Chevandier, doctoral student on a contract, Department of Science, Technology, and Society at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), Germany - Do things more slowly and less consistently

Aurianne Chevandier examines the historicity of contemporary film-based practices known as renewable through a historical and ethnographic study of the (dis)continuities in chemical manipulations in the photographic laboratory from the 1880s to recent experiments with homemade, less toxic developers. 

↘︎ Magalie Martin, artist-researcher, Ph.D. Candidate in Visual Arts, Aix-Marseille University, LESA - The Burning Image, Infrared Vision Systems, and Pyrokinetic Paradoxes

Since 2022, I have been exploring and studying overheated Mediterranean cities. As an artist, I am interested in the potential of infrared visualization technologies, which make it possible to visualize a portion of the electromagnetic spectrum that is invisible to the human eye. I seek to model the invisible aspects of global warming—such as radiation, emissions, and heat—that only cutting-edge technologies can reveal. Taking a site-specific approach, I work primarily in Portugal, where I immerse myself every summer to observe heat waves, massive wildfires, and urban heat island phenomena, as well as their impact on living organisms and the environments they shape.

Closing note

Anne Lacoste, director of the Institut pour la photographie, and Olivier Lugon, professor, University of Lausanne (Switzerland), co-editor-in-chief of the journal Transbordeur. Photography, History, Society