David Low
Researcher, AGBU Nubar Library, Department Member
- The Courtauld Institute of Art, Art History, AlumnusUniversity of Michigan, Armenian Studies Program, Department Memberadd
- History of photography, Armenian Studies, Ottoman History, Armenian History, Photography in the Ottoman Empire, Late Ottoman Period, and 17 moreEconomic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, Ottoman Armenians, Ottoman history and historiography, Late 19th Century Ottoman Art History, Ruins, Cultural Memory, Turkish and Middle East Studies, Ottoman-Armenian History and Material Culture, History of Armenian Diaspora, Armenian Diaspora in the USA, Armenian art history, Armenian architecture, Ottoman Photography, Street Photography, Photography Theory, Exile Studies, and Armenian photographyedit
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
While a sizeable achievement, the series of photographs made by Viennese exile Wolf Suschitzky on London’s Charing Cross Road in the 1930s was never published as a book as originally intended and thus remains somewhat fluid and... more
While a sizeable achievement, the series of photographs made by Viennese exile Wolf Suschitzky on London’s Charing Cross Road in the 1930s was never published as a book as originally intended and thus remains somewhat fluid and fragmentary in form. With this in mind, this essay takes its cue from street photography in order to explore the
work, ‘wandering’ through Suschitzky’s photographic streets on the ‘hunt’ for chance encounters and striking visual motifs. It sets the series within a history of street photography, identifying a practice that involves elements of photojournalism and documentary without being constrained by either of those modes. Utilising Suschitzky’s own
words while foregrounding the photographs themselves, it examines the series as a work of social observation that in turn might provide observations on the photographer. It suggests that the series might be considered a visual record not only of a particular time and place, but also of the character of Suschitzky himself.
work, ‘wandering’ through Suschitzky’s photographic streets on the ‘hunt’ for chance encounters and striking visual motifs. It sets the series within a history of street photography, identifying a practice that involves elements of photojournalism and documentary without being constrained by either of those modes. Utilising Suschitzky’s own
words while foregrounding the photographs themselves, it examines the series as a work of social observation that in turn might provide observations on the photographer. It suggests that the series might be considered a visual record not only of a particular time and place, but also of the character of Suschitzky himself.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
HFB Lynch’s "Armenia: Travels and Studies" (1901) is a text regularly referenced but less often fully examined and interrogated. This lecture will discuss the processes behind the production of Lynch’s book and the events, ideas, themes... more
HFB Lynch’s "Armenia: Travels and Studies" (1901) is a text regularly referenced but less often fully examined and interrogated. This lecture will discuss the processes behind the production of Lynch’s book and the events, ideas, themes and tropes that informed his vision of ‘Armenia’, with particular emphasis on photographs and image-making practice. Often the images found in travelogues are considered organic, neutral pieces of reality, yet a close examination of their construction and deployment can help us to understand the role they play in the creation of a particular image of a place. An understanding of the manner in which the lens presents human geography, natural landscape and the built environment not only allows us to comprehend a writer’s standpoint, but in Lynch’s case it also acts as an enlightening guide as we consider wider practices of ‘dreaming’ the nation in the Near East.
Research Interests:
Ruins have for centuries inspired wonder and fascination in the minds of those that gaze upon them. The complexity of responses to the vestigial elements of previous times can be seen in their propensity to incorporate thoughts of both... more
Ruins have for centuries inspired wonder and fascination in the minds of those that gaze upon them. The complexity of responses to the vestigial elements of previous times can be seen in their propensity to incorporate thoughts of both permanence and transience and feelings of both pleasure and melancholia. Photographers became involved in these processes from the earliest days of the camera, contemplating ruins and allowing through their images viewers in far off lands to do the same. Such photography was one of the ways in which a growing interest in the Armenian provinces and the wider Near East manifested itself, with a wide variety of ideas being projected upon the built environment and its ruin.
Armenian churches, in particular, became sites of exploration and contemplation. At such places both Westerners and Armenians used the camera as a means of documenting the culture of Armenia and depicting its condition. Amidst the ruins, photographic observers pondered the past, present and future of Armenia, finding signs of both a nation’s survival and its decline. These places, however, also became the subject of another form of attention, with ‘new’ ruins being created through acts of cultural genocide. These processes of documentation and destruction can be seen as constituting strange reflections of and concrete responses to one another, at the heart of all lying the idea that the character, history and fate of the Armenian people might be read in stone.
Armenian churches, in particular, became sites of exploration and contemplation. At such places both Westerners and Armenians used the camera as a means of documenting the culture of Armenia and depicting its condition. Amidst the ruins, photographic observers pondered the past, present and future of Armenia, finding signs of both a nation’s survival and its decline. These places, however, also became the subject of another form of attention, with ‘new’ ruins being created through acts of cultural genocide. These processes of documentation and destruction can be seen as constituting strange reflections of and concrete responses to one another, at the heart of all lying the idea that the character, history and fate of the Armenian people might be read in stone.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
The School of Arts, Birkbeck, University of London, and The AGBU Nubar Library, Paris, are delighted to announce a panel discussion and launch of the Special Art History Edition of Études arméniennes contemporaines Towards Inclusive... more
The School of Arts, Birkbeck, University of London, and
The AGBU Nubar Library, Paris,
are delighted to announce a panel discussion and launch of the Special Art History Edition of Études arméniennes contemporaines
Towards Inclusive Art Histories:
Ottoman Armenian Voices Speak Back
Date: Tuesday 26 April
Time: 6.30 pm
Venue:
Keynes Library
School of Arts
Birkbeck College
43 Gordon Square
London, WC1
This event is supported by
Armenian Institute
Gomidas Institute
Ottoman Pasts, Present Cities: Cosmopolitanism and Transcultural Memories AHRC Research Network
Programme of Armenian Studies
Despite a focus on art history in its widest sense, the concerns raised in Issue 6 of Études arméniennes contemporaines offer critical reflections upon the manner in which the heavily politicized seas of the Ottoman historical past are navigated by historians of all stripes. The five revisionist essays published in this volume, and presented by their authors, advocate, collectively and individually, new types of methodologically and empirically sound histories that challenge misconstrued and misrepresented historical pasts, and critique the reductive projections of dominant nationalist/nation-centric or Ottomanist historiographies. Furthermore, they introduce into the debate hitherto silenced voices that have thus far been deliberately excluded from history. Two further presentations offer the personal reflections of two working artists on their own Ottoman historical pasts and presents.
The AGBU Nubar Library, Paris,
are delighted to announce a panel discussion and launch of the Special Art History Edition of Études arméniennes contemporaines
Towards Inclusive Art Histories:
Ottoman Armenian Voices Speak Back
Date: Tuesday 26 April
Time: 6.30 pm
Venue:
Keynes Library
School of Arts
Birkbeck College
43 Gordon Square
London, WC1
This event is supported by
Armenian Institute
Gomidas Institute
Ottoman Pasts, Present Cities: Cosmopolitanism and Transcultural Memories AHRC Research Network
Programme of Armenian Studies
Despite a focus on art history in its widest sense, the concerns raised in Issue 6 of Études arméniennes contemporaines offer critical reflections upon the manner in which the heavily politicized seas of the Ottoman historical past are navigated by historians of all stripes. The five revisionist essays published in this volume, and presented by their authors, advocate, collectively and individually, new types of methodologically and empirically sound histories that challenge misconstrued and misrepresented historical pasts, and critique the reductive projections of dominant nationalist/nation-centric or Ottomanist historiographies. Furthermore, they introduce into the debate hitherto silenced voices that have thus far been deliberately excluded from history. Two further presentations offer the personal reflections of two working artists on their own Ottoman historical pasts and presents.
Research Interests:
Special issue of "zeitgeschichte" (2/2018), edited by Birgit Kirchmayr and Markus Wurzer. The Issue includes the following contributions: - Diana M. Natermann: White Masculinity/ies during the Maji-Maji-War. A Post-Colonial Discussion on... more
Special issue of "zeitgeschichte" (2/2018), edited by Birgit Kirchmayr and Markus Wurzer. The Issue includes the following contributions:
- Diana M. Natermann: White Masculinity/ies during the Maji-Maji-War. A Post-Colonial Discussion on German-Tanzanian Colonial Photography
- David Low: Resistance and Renewal: Ottoman Armenian 'Soldiers' Photography' during the First World War
- Markus Wurzer: The (Re-)Production of Differences in a Colonial Regime of Violence. Private Photographic Practice from the 1935-1941 Italo-Abyssinian War
- Olli Kleemola: Killed Soviet female soldiers and civilian women photographed by Finnish and German soldiers at the Eastern front 1941-1945
- Diana M. Natermann: White Masculinity/ies during the Maji-Maji-War. A Post-Colonial Discussion on German-Tanzanian Colonial Photography
- David Low: Resistance and Renewal: Ottoman Armenian 'Soldiers' Photography' during the First World War
- Markus Wurzer: The (Re-)Production of Differences in a Colonial Regime of Violence. Private Photographic Practice from the 1935-1941 Italo-Abyssinian War
- Olli Kleemola: Killed Soviet female soldiers and civilian women photographed by Finnish and German soldiers at the Eastern front 1941-1945