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African Photography: The Ethics of Looking and Collecting in the Age of Restitution
alyssa schmidek for visura blog
Nov 8, 2022
Summary
The African Photography: The Ethics of Looking and Collecting in the Age of Restitution webinar will take place Friday, November 11, 2022 from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. EST.
African Photography: The Ethics of Looking and Collecting in the Age of Restitution
November 11, 2022, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. EST
NEW YORK, NY - “What is the future of collecting and curating photographs that originate in family and colonial archives on the continent?” The webinar titled African Photography: The Ethics of Looking and Collecting in the Age of Restitution will dive into this question on Friday, November 11, 2022, from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. EST. The program is hosted by The Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America (Columbia University), the Department of Art History and Archaeology (Columbia University, and the Department of Art (University of Virginia).
Artists, curators, and inquiring minds will come together to explore the ethics surrounding the restitution of African heritage in photography. During the event, guests will have the opportunity to discuss and debate the ethics surrounding the rights of photographers who use images with specific cultural origins. During the webinar, participants will examine what rights photographers have to use specific images that have been taken from their original owners. Furthermore, the webinar will examine whether viewers can truly understand these photographs if there is no explanation for the story behind them.
Keynote speaker Temi Odumosu will lead this all-day event to investigate the ethics encompassing the relationship of “authorship to ownership.” Other featured speakers include Sandrine Colard, Osaisonor Godfrey Ekhator-Obogie, Patricia Hayes, Candace Keller, Lebohang Kganye, Ingrid Masondo, Steven Nelson, Giulia Paoletti, John Peffer, and Z.S. Strother.
Guests can use this link to register for the webinar or the full program taking place virtually on November 11, 2022.
About Columbia University
The Italian Academy is a premier global center for research in the humanities and sciences, founded in 1991 on the basis of an agreement between Columbia University and the Republic of Italy. Its chief commitment is to promote groundbreaking cross-disciplinary work while addressing international social issues.
The Department of Art History was founded in conjunction with special resources in archaeology and architecture at the Avery Memorial Library, as inspired by great European traditions of archaeology, connoisseurship, and iconology. Well before recent advances, Columbia art historians transcended the geographical and cultural boundaries of the West. Since Paul Wingert expanded the Department's curriculum in the 1930s, coursework in the study of the arts of Africa, Oceania, Native America, the Near East, and East Asia has been a staple of the Columbia University curriculum, and like Columbia's great teachers of the past—Meyer Schapiro, Rudolf Wittkower, Robert Branner, Howard McP. Davis, Julius Held, Howard Hibbard, Edith Porada, and William Bell Dinsmoor—today's faculty continue to apply art historical methods to illuminate particular works of art, even as they place their works in the broadest cultural context.
About University of Virginia
In 1819, Thomas Jefferson founded the University of Virginia and inaugurated a bold experiment – a public university designed to advance human knowledge, educate leaders and cultivate an informed citizenry. The Department of Art is committed to academic excellence, engaged inquiry, and creative practice. Through the creation and the historical study of the visual and material arts, our students learn to think critically and communicate effectively about art making and its history.
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