“Images in Common” — BAL Fall Seminar with EHESS

The BAL’s fall seminar aims to explore the challenges of contemporary imagery and to examine the concept of “ document "Visual." Each topic covered is explored through case studies presented by experts from various fields of knowledge and the history of visual forms, using examples drawn from the fields of photography, video, and film.

Many contemporary artistic practices challenge the authority historically conferred upon recording media—photography, film, video—and the powers they entail: seeing, framing, designating, and naming. They explore new ways of creating and representing, in which the people being filmed or photographed are no longer mere subjects of the image but become full participants—active recipients capable of contributing to its creation, interpretation, and dissemination.

Collaborative imagery, however, is neither a uniform method nor an inherently virtuous practice. It may arise from a desire to delegate, from the artist’s questioning of their own legitimacy to represent, from the need to provide a context that extends beyond the image itself, or even from a political agenda.

drawing on case studies, the fall seminar will explore the potential, tensions, and limitations of the collaborative image—viewed not as a genre in its own right, but as a space for negotiation where the authority of the gaze, the place of those depicted, and the conditions for crafting a shared narrative are redefined.

Featuring, among others, presentations by:

• ​Lena Bader, research director at the German Center for Art History, Paris
• Vincen Beeckman, photographer
• Benji, activist
• Guillaume Cailleau, filmmaker, producer
• Oriane Durand, exhibition curator
• Mohamed El Khatib, writer and director
• Feel Good Cooperative, a Roman arts cooperative bringing together sex workers, urban planners, and artists
• Johanna Himmelsbach,  artist, photographer, and graphic designer
• Lara Lannoo, choreographer and performing artist
• Kelly Midori McCormick, historian of Japanese photography, University of British Columbia, Vancouver
• Susan Meiselas, photographer
• Thyago Nogueira, director of the Department of Contemporary Photography at the Instituto Moreira Salles, São Paulo 
• Judith Revel, professor of contemporary French philosophy, Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University
• Camille Richert, art historian, curator, and art critic
• Ben Russell, director
• Charlotte Schwarzinger, researcher, programmer, specialist in Lebanese and Palestinian cinema
• Bertrand Schefer, writer
• Bíbata Uribe Cárdenas, a programmer specializing in Latin American cinema.