reframing-a-glossary

What could a photography-related glossary look like today? How can the meaning of the words we use for image-based practices expand or alter within the context of a technology in flux, across different practices or geographies?

The Unthinking Photography tag index contains more than 250 words that link to the platform’s articles, the digital programme’s online commissions as well as posts from the imgexhaust blog. The words included in this page represent significant aspects of contemporary image culture or recurring concepts when one thinks about the visual today.

Aiming to further expand and problematise the concept of a “photographic glossary” this theme proposes alternative ways of providing definitions for the words that we commonly use in photographic or image-related practices. Conceiving the platform’s tag index as a discursive space where practice, theory, research and fiction meet, we are exploring possible definitions as an opportunity to speculate on image culture, language and the production of knowledge.

The texts that appear on this page are part of the research project Reframing a glossary.

Images by Ariel Fresh.

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3D object in a rocky, asteroid formation, on a blurry background displaying the word “abundance” on its surface.

Mónica Alcázar-Duarte reflects on how abundance in indigenous culture is in contrast with ideas of aspiration and eternal growth.

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Yung Au considers the term Activism through a retrospective lens, and how it claims to bring possible futures

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Srujana Katta considers how Community artefacts as shown through an ephemeral piece of daily life: the screenshot

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3D object in a rocky, asteroid formation, on a blurry background displaying the word “history” on its surface.

Dhruv Jani reflects on the term History, using a little-known album of seventeen images from the town of Itihasnagar

unthinking
photography

Reframing a glossary

Abundance

Activism

Communities

History