There is a rich and growing literature in African Studies that critically assesses both past and present generations of photography and film in Africa. One thread in this body of work looks for ways of centering African photographers and filmmakers as creators of new styles, looks, and subjectivities. Another thread looks at the artistic environments that Africans created, at the ways in which images (both still and filmic) shaped religious sentiments and formed communities. A third thread looks at what is termed vernacular photography in distinct African locations, focusing on the materiality and mobility of images. A fourth thread looks at processes of archival preservation, collection and digitization as well as creative acts of recuperation, that is, newly curated exhibits of old things—both photographs and films. A final thread explores how Africans engaged, appropriated, synthesized, interpreted filmic and photographic practices from beyond Africa.

This workshop will bring together a range of scholars working on these and other contemporary issues in the field of African visual cultures. We are interested in blurring the photographic with the filmic in order to explore the qualities of one as inherent to the other.

Panel sessions are free and open to the public. Visit ii.umich.edu/asc/ahi and click the U-M/WiSER Mellon Workshop section for conference details.