AVCS25

This course radically refocuses critical debates about contemporary photography on local image-making economies and vibrant centers of artistic production that too often sit at the margins of art historical discourse. It shifts the conversation away from dominant narratives that chart photographic history as a hegemonic Euro-American explosion of technology and instead orient thinking toward globalized photographic networks that connect continents, countries, and cultures. Through thematic lectures, discussions, and museum visits, students study photographic practices from outside of the Global North from 1980 to the present. This course seeks to decolonize the relationship between history and cultural representations by studying the international migration of photographs within the global art market. Students will complete a term-length object-based writing project, incorporating photographs at the Bates College Art Museum.