47th annual SPE conference

Philadelphia

March 4-7, 2010

The 47th annual conference of the Society for Photographic Education (SPE) was constructed around a theme of "Facing Diversity: Leveling the Playing Field in the Photographic Arts." While the conference offerings did address the event's theme more overtly than some previous conferences have, the question remains whether inequities in photographic representation and education can be sufficiently addressed, much less ameliorated, in the space of fewer than three days.

In the opening plenary, Renaissance man Kip Fulbeck flexed his multidisciplinary muscles, beginning with a brief fictional audio re-enactment of what it is like for a mixed-race person to fill out standard forms. He followed with a participatory exercise he uses with schoolchildren, essentially proving that Americans know more about pop culture than hard news or politics. He then shared several of his short films about identity and some of his bookworks, which use race as a jumping off point to discuss identity. Fulbeck pointed out that perhaps we would all do well to remember that diversity is more than race, but the evening (although admittedly entertaining) came off as a repetitive hodgepodge. In the second plenary, Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie and Veronica Passalacqua discussed the exhibit "Visual Sovereignty: International Indigenous Photography" at the University of California, Davis, in 2009, explaining that the concept of sovereignty includes visual sovereignty, a notion that served as an impetus for this important project. The artists in this exhibition offer portraits in defiance of disappearance and a revisioning of historical and stereotyped images. In his plenary "Beyond Diversity and Toward Inclusivity," Dawoud Bey explored the history of alternative photographic organizations as a site of protest, offering Visual Studies Workshop, the publisher of Afterimage, as one of a small handful of initially grassroots organizations that could serve as models for a movement toward inclusivity that is needed again today. In addition, Deborah Willis was feted as the 2010 Honored Educator in a deservedly hagiographic celebration of her influential teaching and extensive scholarship.

There were numerous panel sessions and several with so many participants that even double-length sessions could not accommodate time for questions This resulted in audiences too often retreating without any direct, public engagement with the issues and ideas raised. The quality of the panels varied from off-the-cuff presentations of an artist's own work to diatribes against social injustices to thoughtful gatherings of imagemakers working in the same vein. Highlights included "Framing the Family Photograph: In and Outside the Box," chaired by Clarissa Sligh, in which Clare Charles Cornell shared montage work about an absent father in an effective psychoanalytic examination of masculinity, and Sylvia Sukop shared her moving portraits of her brother who died of cancer at age 19. Sokup said of her project: "the camera was an anchor on which I could fasten my frightened eye."

A sparsely attended panel titled "Visual Sovereignty: Contemporary Native American Photography and the Politics of Imagination" offered a tangible follow-up to Tsinhnahjinnie and Passalacqua's plenary session. The four artists addressed common themes including their relation to the land, the conveyance of history and culture through story and language, the shared history of colonization, and issues of identity (ending with Kimowan Metchewais's amusing observation that "the internet is one big powwow"). In the panel session "Self as Object: Perspectives on Identity," several women photographers shared their unique and powerful approaches to selfportraiture, asking important questions about this private process as it eventually takes its place in the public sphere.

The panel "Unexpected Desire," chaired by Willis, brought together a large group of photographers and scholars. Coco Fusco shared her ongoing research into the legacy of the Venus Hottentot. Wafaa Bilal shared his "Shoot an Iraqi" project, in which 65,000 paintballs were shot at the Iraq-born artist over the course of one month through internet directives from viewers in 136 countries. Carla Williams shared the work of several black lesbian photographers and Hank Willis Thomas presented research into the historic representation of black identity in advertisements, in particular addressing the changing notions of black female identity.

Other events included plentiful imagemaker sessions, scholarly lectures, and graduate student presentations. In the second category, Janet Zandy lectured on "Seeing Beyond the Dirt: The Language of Working-Class Photography," a presentation that won the SPE Award for Excellence in Historical, Critical and Theoretical Writing. Zandy spoke of class being a critical element of photography and of the existence of an aesthetic of relationality. She called for viewers to be conscious of how their own thinking is framed and (per M. M. Bakhtin) to acknowledge mutual recognition and a sense of responsibility for others. Of note in the last category were Gazelle Samizay's stunning video explorations of her heritage and the Afghan diaspora.

There was some attention to diversity other than ethnicity. Douglas McCulloh offered a fascinating presentation on some of the artists in the exhibition he curated, "Sight Unseen: International Photography by Blind Artists." Along with extraordinary photographic work, McCulloh shared anecdotes from the photographers, including "I am a very visual person. I just can't see" and the notion that the sighted are "a little bit blind from constantly being bombarded by images." Ultimately, the work of these blind imagemakers makes us question the difference between sight and vision and re-consider the imperatives of photographic education.1

NOTE 1. The next SPE conference will be held in Atlanta, Georgia, March 10-13, 2011. The conference theme is "Science, Poetry and the Photographic Image." For more information visit www.spenalional.org.

Author affiliation:

KAREN VANMEENEN is Editor of Afterimage.