Talks and Workshops by Özge Calafato
The archive has become an object of sustained historical and theoretical investigation in recent ... more The archive has become an object of sustained historical and theoretical investigation in recent years. The anthropological turn in photographic criticism has opened up new directions for the analysis and understanding of photo archives that compliment and dialogue with more traditional Art Historical approaches focused on photographs as images; it has helped direct this growing interest towards the materiality of the photograph as object, and its social and institutional lives that unfold very often within the archival ecosystem. At the same time, an ever-increasing number of scholars, artists and curators are addressing the neglected histories and practices of photography beyond the borders of Europe and North America. This conference aims to build upon these developments and reorientations, and to attend to issues of critical importance for photo archives from Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and Oceania—from the part of the world that Bangladeshi photographer Shahidul Alam has so aptly referred to as the “majority world.” The conference will be the seventh in the series “Photo Archives,” a series that helped over a number of years to establish an international network of photo archive scholars and archive professionals, and to stimulate a dialogue between academics and archivists.
This colloquium aims to develop conversations and collaborations among various public archives, i... more This colloquium aims to develop conversations and collaborations among various public archives, institutional archives, and private collections devoted to photography or containing substantial photographic holdings. Presentations on the archives are followed by a round-table discussion that explores ways in which UAE institutions and individuals might work together to develop greater interest in, and understanding of, the role of photography in the history and culture of the UAE.
Photography and Human Rights Colloquium
19 Washington Square North – NYU Abu Dhabi, New York Apr... more Photography and Human Rights Colloquium
19 Washington Square North – NYU Abu Dhabi, New York April 4, 2016
Human rights photography has pursued an ethics and a practice for photography that distinguishes it from much of social documentary photography and photojournalism. It has focused not only on wars, political upheavals and environmental catastrophes but also increasingly on issues of health, gender, work and education in their local dimensions. This colloquium and workshop will explore the history, theory and practice of human rights photography by bringing together a distinguished group of international scholars and practicing photographers.
NYUAD Saadiyat Campus March 8-10, 2015
Our understanding of the histories and practices of photo... more NYUAD Saadiyat Campus March 8-10, 2015
Our understanding of the histories and practices of photography is changing as more and more critical attention is being paid to photographic cultures from outside of Europe and North America, and to new forms and functions emergent in a variety of contemporary social and political contexts. Focusing in particular on the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia, this conference brings together scholars, photographers, curators, and archivists from around the world in order to undertake new explorations of photography’s past and present.
Akkasah, the Center for Photography at New York University Abu Dhabi, is home to an archive of th... more Akkasah, the Center for Photography at New York University Abu Dhabi, is home to an archive of the photographic heritage of the Middle East and North Africa. The Center is dedicated to documenting and preserving the diverse histories and practices of photography from the region, and our growing archive contains at present over 33,000 images. Akkasah undertakes and supports research on Middle Eastern and North African photography, as well as on cross-cultural and transnational aspects of photography, through conferences, colloquia and publications, and through the research fellowship program of the NYUAD Institute. It also commissions new documentary projects from contemporary photographers that are archived alongside the Center’s historical collections, and it is establishing a special collection of photographic albums, as well as of original photobooks from around the world.
Akkasah acquires collections of prints and negatives, and it also creates digital versions of collections that remain with individuals and institutions seeking to preserve and share their collections. Akkasah is a scholarly enterprise and the Center does not seek any commercial rights over the materials it holds.
Both the archive and the special collection of photobooks and albums are open to scholars, students and the general public by appointment. We welcome proposals for new collections and collaborations.
"The First Century of Photography: Photography as History/ Historicizing Photography in Ottoman t... more "The First Century of Photography: Photography as History/ Historicizing Photography in Ottoman territories (1839 — 1939)" workshop organized by Bogazici University Archives and Document Center, RCAC (Research Center for Anatolian Civilization), and IFEA (Institut Francais d l Études Anatoliennes), İstanbul, 19-20-21 June, 2018.
Book Chapters by Özge Calafato
Imaging and Imagining Palestine: Photography, Modernity and the Biblical Lens, 1918–1948 , 2021
The Camera As Actor : Photography and the Embodiment of Technology, 2020
Mostly anonymous without any name or logo on their prints, thousands of itinerant photographers (... more Mostly anonymous without any name or logo on their prints, thousands of itinerant photographers (commonly known as alaminütçü) operated across Turkey from the 1910s up until the mid-1980s although itinerant photographers in the West had already faded away by the 1940s with the spread of snapshot cameras. A decade of wars throughout the 1910s had left the country impoverished, which had a dramatic impact on the profession of photography. The destitution is reflected in the scarcity of photographic material and the delayed introduction of photographic technologies to the country. Photographers used 6x9 glass plates up until the 1930s. The use of 35mm film started in the 1930s, with cameras increasingly entering households. Kodak Brownie cameras were already on the market and relatively affordable, yet it was not until after WWII that amateur snapshots became popular. Consequently, in the post-war conditions in Turkey, alaminüt photography filled in an important vacuum by penetrating remote towns and villages, reaching out to the lower classes, who might otherwise have no access to photo studios at the time. This chapter studies how the mobile camera and the alaminüt box, which produced two sets of images, a negative followed by a positive print, went beyond what was typically captured by studio photographs and how it negotiated the making of a new modern Republican citizen as promoted by the Kemalist regime.
Books by Özge Calafato
Imaging and Imagining Palestine: Photography, Modernity and the Biblical Lens 1918-1948, 2021
Co-edited by Karène Sanchez Summerer and Sary Zananiri, with contributions by Salim Tamari, Abiga... more Co-edited by Karène Sanchez Summerer and Sary Zananiri, with contributions by Salim Tamari, Abigail Jacobson, Inger Marie Okkenhaug, Norig Neveu and Karène Sanchez Summerer, Issam Nassar, Rona Sela, Rachel A. Lev, Sary Zananiri, Yazan Kopty, Stephen Sheehi, Nadi abusaada, Özge Calafato and Aude Aylin de Tapia.
Making the Modern Turkish Citizen: Vernacular Photography in the Early Republican Era, 2022
This book explores the photographic self-representations of the urban middle classes in Turkey in... more This book explores the photographic self-representations of the urban middle classes in Turkey in the 1920s and the 1930s. Examining the relationship between photography and gender, body, space as well as materiality and language, its six chapters investigates how the production and circulation of vernacular photographs contributed to the making of the modern Turkish citizen in the formative years of the Turkish Republic, when nation-building, secularization and modernization reforms took centre stage.
Based on an extensive vernacular photographic archive, the book shows how urban middle classes performed, reproduced and circulated the ideal citizen-image through photographic portraiture, negotiating not only the impositions of the Kemalist regime but also their class aspirations and wider social and cultural developments of the period, from fashion trends to the increasing availability of modern consumer items. Calafato also reveals that the freedom from state control afforded by amateur cameras allowed the desired image to be sometimes tweaked by incorporating elements from Ottoman and Turkic traditions, by pushing the boundaries of gender norms or by introducing playfulness. Making the Modern Turkish Citizen offers a valuable portrait of how the newly minted Turkish middle classes wanted to present their different selves in and outside the studio setting, revealing the rapidly shifting political and social landscape of the early Republican era.
Papers by Özge Calafato
Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication, 2023
Through a case study of Istanbul’s Foto Görçek, playfully dubbed ‘the world’s first selfie studio... more Through a case study of Istanbul’s Foto Görçek, playfully dubbed ‘the world’s first selfie studio’, this article focuses on the changing photographic practices from the mid-1940s–1960s in modern Turkey, which experienced a dramatic political transition during the 1950s with the introduction of the multi-party regime following three decades of strictly secular Kemalist rule. This study explores how Foto Görçek challenged and transformed studio practices in Turkey, particularly during its increasing popularity in the 1950s–1960s, by allowing people to take up Elizabeth Edwards’ notion of the ‘theater of the self’, or when the self also takes on the role of the photographer. Accordingly, the article looks at the affordances of the photo studio as a space where citizens reimagined their desired selves and when new ways of imagining the self were made available to them. Moreover, this study investigates how such new imagined selves in the aftermath of the Second World War served to renegotiate a desired modern Turkish identity resulting from the rigorous state-controlled nation-building process during the 1920s–1930s.
Trans Asia Photography , 2022
This portfolio looks at photographic self-representations of Turkish citizens of a newly establis... more This portfolio looks at photographic self-representations of Turkish citizens of a newly established nation-state from the 1920s until the 1940s. The article explores the ways in which modern Turkish women and men performed their interpretation of the photogenic in photographic self-representations and how these self-representations negotiated the Kemalists' idea of modern citizenship in the early republican era. The desired selves performed in vernacular photographs were influenced not only by the Kemalist revolution but also by class aspirations of the citizens and wider sociocultural developments of the time. In addition, this portfolio reveals some of the complex circulation networks for photographic exchanges, as also suggested by inscriptions produced at the time, contributing to a deeper understanding as to how people constructed their interpretation of the photographic.
Toplumsal Tarih, 2021
1920’li ve 1930’lu yılların vernaküler fotoğrafları özellikle cinsiyetlendirilmiş ve sınıflandır... more 1920’li ve 1930’lu yılların vernaküler fotoğrafları özellikle cinsiyetlendirilmiş ve sınıflandırılmış bir aile temsili sunuyor. Dönemin fotoğraflarında Cumhuriyet’in arzuladığı yeni Türk ailesi, kentli, modern, laik ve orta sınıf bir aile olarak kodlanıyor. Günümüzde sahaflarda, antikacılarda, özel koleksiyonlarda ve arşivlerde rastladığımız vernaküler fotoğraflar kentli orta sınıf vatandaşların yeni Cumhuriyet ailesinin inşasına kendi fotoğraf temsilleri üzerinden büyük ölçüde destek verdiğini ve aktif olarak katıldığını ortaya koyuyor.
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Talks and Workshops by Özge Calafato
19 Washington Square North – NYU Abu Dhabi, New York April 4, 2016
Human rights photography has pursued an ethics and a practice for photography that distinguishes it from much of social documentary photography and photojournalism. It has focused not only on wars, political upheavals and environmental catastrophes but also increasingly on issues of health, gender, work and education in their local dimensions. This colloquium and workshop will explore the history, theory and practice of human rights photography by bringing together a distinguished group of international scholars and practicing photographers.
Our understanding of the histories and practices of photography is changing as more and more critical attention is being paid to photographic cultures from outside of Europe and North America, and to new forms and functions emergent in a variety of contemporary social and political contexts. Focusing in particular on the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia, this conference brings together scholars, photographers, curators, and archivists from around the world in order to undertake new explorations of photography’s past and present.
Akkasah acquires collections of prints and negatives, and it also creates digital versions of collections that remain with individuals and institutions seeking to preserve and share their collections. Akkasah is a scholarly enterprise and the Center does not seek any commercial rights over the materials it holds.
Both the archive and the special collection of photobooks and albums are open to scholars, students and the general public by appointment. We welcome proposals for new collections and collaborations.
Book Chapters by Özge Calafato
Books by Özge Calafato
Based on an extensive vernacular photographic archive, the book shows how urban middle classes performed, reproduced and circulated the ideal citizen-image through photographic portraiture, negotiating not only the impositions of the Kemalist regime but also their class aspirations and wider social and cultural developments of the period, from fashion trends to the increasing availability of modern consumer items. Calafato also reveals that the freedom from state control afforded by amateur cameras allowed the desired image to be sometimes tweaked by incorporating elements from Ottoman and Turkic traditions, by pushing the boundaries of gender norms or by introducing playfulness. Making the Modern Turkish Citizen offers a valuable portrait of how the newly minted Turkish middle classes wanted to present their different selves in and outside the studio setting, revealing the rapidly shifting political and social landscape of the early Republican era.
Papers by Özge Calafato
19 Washington Square North – NYU Abu Dhabi, New York April 4, 2016
Human rights photography has pursued an ethics and a practice for photography that distinguishes it from much of social documentary photography and photojournalism. It has focused not only on wars, political upheavals and environmental catastrophes but also increasingly on issues of health, gender, work and education in their local dimensions. This colloquium and workshop will explore the history, theory and practice of human rights photography by bringing together a distinguished group of international scholars and practicing photographers.
Our understanding of the histories and practices of photography is changing as more and more critical attention is being paid to photographic cultures from outside of Europe and North America, and to new forms and functions emergent in a variety of contemporary social and political contexts. Focusing in particular on the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia, this conference brings together scholars, photographers, curators, and archivists from around the world in order to undertake new explorations of photography’s past and present.
Akkasah acquires collections of prints and negatives, and it also creates digital versions of collections that remain with individuals and institutions seeking to preserve and share their collections. Akkasah is a scholarly enterprise and the Center does not seek any commercial rights over the materials it holds.
Both the archive and the special collection of photobooks and albums are open to scholars, students and the general public by appointment. We welcome proposals for new collections and collaborations.
Based on an extensive vernacular photographic archive, the book shows how urban middle classes performed, reproduced and circulated the ideal citizen-image through photographic portraiture, negotiating not only the impositions of the Kemalist regime but also their class aspirations and wider social and cultural developments of the period, from fashion trends to the increasing availability of modern consumer items. Calafato also reveals that the freedom from state control afforded by amateur cameras allowed the desired image to be sometimes tweaked by incorporating elements from Ottoman and Turkic traditions, by pushing the boundaries of gender norms or by introducing playfulness. Making the Modern Turkish Citizen offers a valuable portrait of how the newly minted Turkish middle classes wanted to present their different selves in and outside the studio setting, revealing the rapidly shifting political and social landscape of the early Republican era.