Photographers and/or lens-based artists working together with a philosopher on a specific topic to create a project

This year the topic is
Framing Crisis

The notion of crisis permeates contemporary reality through and through. Often, it appears as a catchword, suggesting that what we are confronted with is spectacular, shocking or alarming. For photography, crisis is not only a recurrent topic to be depicted; it also hits the idea of representation and the trust in the technical image. Both, reality itself and the forms and formats through which it is mediated are nowadays shaken by crisis in various ways. But what exactly do we mean when we speak of crisis?

The term crisis is rooted in the ancient Greek verb κρίνω (to decide, to separate, to judge, to fight), which has evolved into “critique” as subjective activity on the one hand, and “crisis” as its objective counterpart, on the other hand. The modern concept of crisis seizes a critical situation, in which “new ’causes’ […] disturb the existing equilibrium”(Valéry). Constituted by a complex temporality of change, it pushes for the radical transformation of its very conditions. How can photography challenge pervasive clichéd representations of crisis in order to subvert gridlocked perceptions? How can it grasp the critical dimension of both, an actual crisis and the crisis of its images? Is it possible to generate a critical framing of crisis? These and other questions will be addressed during this workshop.

Stefanie Baumann