Addressing documentary futures, this one-day international symposium explores the ways in which photographers are now collaborative and expansive in their research as they seek to give visual forms to key aspects of contemporary ecologies, economies, science and aesthetics. Deploying an array of innovative approaches and relations to the traditional conception of photography as a realist form, work by the new documentarians critically engages with the functioning and condition of global markets, the infrastructure behind algorithmic stock trading, our preservation of and empathy for animal species and the implications of artificial intelligence for our understanding of being human.

This online symposium is a collaboration with the visual artist, publisher and lecturer Salvatore Vitale at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts and will be led by Lisa Barnard and Mark Durden from The University of South Wales. It is developed in response to the implications of Vitale’s digital show and book Reset (Futures Photography, 2020) and his Transmedia Storytelling Program, as well as recent research by Barnard in visual performative essays and the newly revalidated online MA Documentary Photography program.

Speakers currently confirmed are Eline Benjaminsen and Elias Kamaiyo, Lebohang Kganye, Sheng-Wen Lo, Maija Tammi, Mark Curran and Iris Sikking.

Outline of the Day

10.00-10.10 Introduction by Lisa Barnard

10.10-10.40 Sheng Wen Lo

10.40-11.10 Break

11.10-11.40 Eline Benjaminsen and Elias Kamaiy

11.40-11.50 Break

11.50-12.20 Lebohang Kganye

12.20-12.30 Break

12.30-13.00 Panel and Questions

13.00-13.40 LUNCH

13.40-13.50 Introduction Salvatore Vitale

13.50-14.20 Maija Tammi

14.20-14.30 Break

14.30-14.50 Mark Curran

14.50-15.20 Break

15.20-15.50 Iris Sikking

15.50-16.30 Panel and Questions