Abstracts are invited for participation in the annual workshop in Visual History & Theory to be held at the Centre for Humanities Research, University of the Western Cape, on 19-20 September 2024.

In previous years the Visual History and Theory workshops have addressed a range of themes that have moved from the visual subject as a predominantly human question, to the visual as a means to think critically about human/nonhuman relations and ecologies. The 2024 workshop builds on the insights and inter-connections developed across earlier keynote lectures, panels and debates, and will venture more deeply into concepts of time and temporal fluidity in relation to the visual. This is especially apt given photography’s initial conception as a triumph against the corruption of time, superseding the loss of the moment, arresting decline and even mortality. What are the modes of historical consciousness related to this? What are the cultural and anthropocentric constructions of time in which we are trapped? Drawing on photographs and other visual and sensory media, the workshop will address the question of time through a range of concepts and framings. These include: Scale, Genesis/gestation/gesture, Returns/oscillations, Liquidity, Emergence/Emergency, Cide/s, Curator/caretaker.

Abstracts and inquiries should be sent to Patricia Hayes at visualhistoryuwc@gmail.com or phayes@uwc.ac.za by 3 July 2024.

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