Soldiers, suffragettes and women citizens: women photographers and politics
For the second time, ARIP (Photographic Image Research Association) is partnering with FETART as part of the Circulation (s) festival.
Driven by the desire to strengthen the links between practices of the exhibition and research on the photographic image, the organisers offer a Research Day on Wednesday, May 2, at 104. The day will be an opportunity to discover the work of researchers and photographers in interviews.
“Soldiers, suffragettes and women citizens: women photographers and politics” The end of 2017 and the beginning of 2018 are marked by the emergence of the political stakes of women’s thinking in the public space. These questions are debated on different platforms, it seems legitimate to ask what is the place of photography and its institutions in these discussions. If this question concerns all fields, what about the history of art and more specifically the history of contemporary photography?
The title of this day dedicated to research: “Soldiers, suffragettes and citizens” thus fully invites to think about the investment of women in the photographic profession and their commitments. More broadly, it is therefore a question of questioning the thought of politics through the prism of sex or gender.
The genre in photography has already been the subject of several initiatives in the French context. In 2016, the Musée de l’Orangerie and the Musée d’Orsay proposed an exhibition with the provocative title: “Who’s afraid of women photographers? Both institutions were trying to deconstruct the idea that photography was an invention but also an exclusively masculine appropriation. The chronology of the exhibition ended in 1945. In turn, the Ecole du Louvre, during a study day entitled “Women photographers: disguises, theatricality, representations” (January 18, 2018) stated the need to continue the debate.
The “Day of Research” proposed by the ARIP and the Circulation (s) festival thus proposes to continue the reflection by paying particular attention to the question of politics. This day will be on the one hand an opportunity to widen the chronological limits (1945-2018) but also to reduce the axis of study to the question of politics. The idea is to question the positions, speeches and corpora of women photographers during the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century.
It will be necessary to understand the multitude of reports that women photographers have with the medium and the stakes that it carries when the woman behind the camera is animated by commitments, convictions, fights. Photography will be considered in its documentary, artistic, journalistic, or vernacular functions, as well as in its processes, technologies and receptions.
ARIP – whose dynamic was relaunched in March 2014, and whose last collegial office was elected in September 2017 – develops its activities and notebooks, with the principle of pooling research and experiences concerning the photographic image.
We are committed to making it an open and interdisciplinary platform bringing together young researchers from postgraduate to post-doc from multiple universities, as well as photographers and professionals from the world of photography.
Through exchanges concerning specific research topics as well as the questioning of cross-cutting themes, we want to make ARIP a benevolent space where a thought of photography in construction flourishes.
Additional information
Date: Wednesday, May 2nd, 2018
Schedule: 14h-19h
Location: Incubator Show – Centquatre Paris
Rates / Booking conditions: Free access within the limits of available places Organizer:
Association de la Recherche sur l’Image Photographique (ARIP)
