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The Emory University Visual Scholarship Initiative (VSI) is a student-run organization committed to visual and multi-media practices in contemporary interdisciplinary scholarship. Read more »
allansekula-Dear Bill Gates-1999
Image from "Beyond the Victim," Aubrey Graham
Wojnarowicz Panel
The Hysterical Alphabet
Joy Lounge, John Q
Shingleroof Camp Meeting

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Public Events: Allan Sekula Screening, Talk, and Colloquium

The Emory VSI is excited to cosponsor these upcoming events featuring Allan Sekula:

  • SCREENING / The Forgotten Space
    Tuesday, December 6, 7 pm
    co-directed by Noel Burch and Allan Sekula
    W Atlanta-Downtown, 45 Ivan Allen Boulevard, Atlanta
  • ARTIST’S TALK / Critical Realism in a Time of Lies
    Wednesday, December 7, 7 pm
    Georgia Tech, College of Architecture Auditorium
  • Institute of Liberal Arts (ILA) Colloquium
    Thursday, December 8, 1-2 pm
    Emory University, ILA Seminar Room, S423 Callaway Center

Allan Sekula’s lecture Critical Realism in a Time of Lies is co-sponsored by Georgia Tech, College of Architecture and Visual Arts, American Studies, the Graduate Institute of Liberal Arts and the Visual Scholarship Initiative at Emory University and the Hightower Fund. The screening of The Forgotten Space is sponsored by W Atlanta-Downtown.

In his artist’s talk, Allan Sekula will provide a close look at a few of the works he made between 1974 and 2010. He will discuss the ways in which they both explore the unstable position of photography within the art system and acknowledge, if not assert, the “worldliness” of the image.

Born in Erie, Pennsylvania in 1951 and based in Los Angeles, Allan Sekula is a photographer, writer-critic, and filmmaker.

Since the early 1970s, his works with photographic sequences, written texts, slide shows, and sound recordings have traveled a path close to cinema. At times, they refer to specific films. In other instances, such as his 1973 work Aerospace Folktales, they operate like a “disassembled movie” while resisting the “dictatorship of the projector.” Yet, with the exception of a few video works from the early 70s and early 80s, he has stayed away from the moving image. This changed in 2001, with Tsukiji, titled after the Tokyo fish market: this is in fact the first work that Sekula was willing to call a film. His subsequent films include Short Film for Laos, 2006, and Lottery of the Sea, 2006. His most recent film, The Forgotten Space, has been screened in over 30 festivals worldwide since its premiere at the Venice Film Festival in 2010, where it won a special jury prize.

Sekula’s books include Photography against the Grain, 1984; Fish Story, 1995; Geography Lesson: Canadian Notes, 1996; Dismal Science, 1999; Performance under Working Conditions, 2003; TITANIC’s wake, 2003; and Polonia and Other Fables, 2009. These works range thematically from critical investigations of the history of photography to studies of family life in the grip of the military-industrial complex, branching out into explorations of myths of national identity.

In addition, his longstanding interest in questions of sovereignty led to a number of widely exhibited works on the global maritime economy, including The Forgotten Space. His extended photographic works on this subject were included in Documenta 11, 2002, and Documenta 12, 2007, in Kassel, Germany.

Allan Sekula has taught in the Cinema Studies Program at New York University, in the now-defunct Department of Photography and Cinema at Ohio State University, and since 1985, in the Program in Photography and Media at the California Institute of the Arts.

Screening and Talk: Anna Grimshaw, Editing as Scholarly Practice

The ILA Colloquium Series presents

Anna Grimshaw
Editing as Scholarly Practice

  • Screening of Dr. Anna Grimshaw’s Spring in Dickinson’s Reach (92 minutes)
    Monday, November 14, 2011
    5pm, Group Viewing Room, Music and Media Library (4th Floor, Woodruff Library)
  • ILA Colloquium
    Tuesday, November 15, 2011
    12 noon – 1 pm, ILA Conference Room – S423 Callaway Center

The intellectual seriousness of ethnographic film has long been contested. The genre is often understood to be part of a popularizing endeavor that is illustrative not generative, descriptive not analytical. Drawing on her current project, Anna Grimshaw explores the kind of anthropology that she seeks to pursue through the medium of film. What sort of scholarly inquiry is constituted by the use of particular shooting and editing techniques?

Professor Anna Grimshaw (ILA) is an anthropologist and filmmaker. She is currently completing a cycle of four films that explores the life of William Coperthwaite, who has lived in the Maine woods for over fifty years.

The ILA Colloquium is an open forum for intellectual exchange among faculty and graduate students. Brief presentations will be followed by open discussion. Light refreshments with be provided. All are welcome!

Public Event: Timothy Archibald, ECHOLALIA

The VSI is excited to co-sponsor a trio of upcoming events and an exhibition featuring Timothy Archibald:

ECHOLALIA: The Spectrum of Childhood and the Documentation of a Relationwship—Photographs by Father and Son

  • Thursday, October 7, 6PM, Center for Ethics Commons, Room 102
    Emory University Center for Ethics in collaboration with Marcus Autism Center presents:
    A Conversation with the Artist
  • Friday, October 28, 7PM, School of Medicine Room 110
    Emory University School of Medicine in collaboration with Atlanta Celebrates Photography presents:
    Timothy Archibald, ECHOLALIA, Exhibit opening, artist talk, and reception
    (Parking and shuttle service available from the Peavine Parking Deck).

Timothy Archibald, celebrated San Francisco based commercial photographer, struggled to
connect with his five-year old firstborn, Eli—the tension in their home was palpable—until
Timothy started looking at his son through his camera. Together, the two orchestrated a
portrait series that depicts dreamy, intimate images not only of Eli but of childhood itself,
riddled as it is with mystery and fantasy. In doing so, Archibald documents the burgeoning
of a newly charted relationship with his son. Through their creative collaboration,
empowerment came to both Timothy and Eli. Timothy found a way to dial-in to Eli’s
different channel, thereby breaching the previously challenging obstacle posed by his son’s
autistic proclivities. And Eli found a powerful mirror both of his robust, imaginative
childhood and his renewed bond with his dad.

Read the New York Times review of ECHOLALIA.

VSI Workshop – Copyright: All Rights Reserved?

Join us for a copyright and consent form panel, discussing issues relevant to multimedia dissertation work.

Thursday, February 17, 5PM
Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts, Room 208

Download a flier for the event or see our workshops page for more information.

Art and Censorship: A Screening of David Wojnarowicz’s “A Fire in My Belly” and Panel Discussion

Thursday, February 17 from 7-9 pm

White Hall 208, Emory University

Featuring commentary by:

Public Event: Theater Oobleck, The Hysterical Alphabet

The Emory Visual Scholarship Initiative is happy to co-present The Hysterical Alphabet, from Chicago’s Theater Oobleck. The Hysterical Alphabet is an interdisciplinary, multi-media performance by artist collective Theater Oobleck based on the book written by Terri Kapsalis, illustrated by Gina Litherland, published by White Walls, and distributed by the University of Chicago Press. Read the rest of this page »

Ethnographies Without Text: 2010 Film Screening

Join us in the ILA Seminar Room, Callaway 423, on Wednesday April 28th, 4–6 pm for a screening of five short ethnographic films by Emory graduate students. The films explore community development, motherhood, artistic expression, local communities, and religion. Read the rest of this page »

Ethnographies Without Texts: Discussion and Critique

On Thursday, October 29 and Friday, October 30, 2009, five graduate student filmmakers will screen works-in-progress for collective discussion and critique. This workshop highlights the visual ethnography being produced by graduate students at Emory Read the rest of this page »

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