Visual records of place remain to a large degree inadequate when attempting to make visible the ephemeral states of consciousness that underlie the damage wrought by brutal regimes, let alone make visible the extraordinary histories and power structures encoded in images and views. This practice-led dissertation examines an emerging critical landscape genre in post-apartheid South Africa and Namibia, and its relationship to specific themes such as identity, belonging, trauma and memory. The landscape genre was traditionally considered inadequate to use in expressions of resistance under apartheid, particularly in the socially conscious and reformist discourse of South African documentary photography. I argue that, as a result of historical and cultural shifts after the demise of apartheid in 1994, a shift in aesthetic and subject matter has occurred, one that has led to a more rigorous and interventionist engagement with the landscape genre. I demonstrate how, after 1994, photographers of the long-established documentary tradition, which was meant to record 'what is there' in a sharp, clear, legible and impartial manner, would continue to draw on devices of the documentary aesthetic, but in a more idiosyncratic way. I show how these post-apartheid, documentary landscapes both disrupt and complicate the conventional expectations involved in converting visual fields into knowledge. I further investigate, through my own experimental documentary work, the ideologically fraught aspects of landscape representation with their links to Calvinist and German Romantic aesthetics. I appropriate and disrupt certain tropes still prevalent in popular landscape depictions. I do this in an effort to reveal the complex and troubled relationship that these traditions share with issues of willed historical amnesia and recognition in contemporary Namibia. Through my practice and the examination of other photographers' and artists' work, this project aims to further a self-reflective and critical approach to the genre of landscape and issues of identity in post-apartheid South Africa and Namibia.

新疆塔吉克族的婚禮，目前已是聯合國非物質文化遺產之一。塔吉克族的婚禮方式傳統特殊，有其特定的結婚季節，是塔吉克人引以為傲的慶典。隨著中國大陸「一帶一路」的全球經濟發展策略，塔吉克族的故鄉塔什庫爾干，因為位於一帶一路通往中亞與南亞的重要樞紐上，成為了經濟特區，帶動經濟飛快地發展，卻也造成維護傳統文化上的巨大衝擊。許多塔吉克族的傳統房屋被迫拆除，新建地現代樓房因為室內空間改變，而影響了塔吉克族的婚禮儀式。此外，隨著現代化的影響，許多傳統的禮俗慢慢地流失，塔吉克族特有的樂器鷹笛和羊皮鼓，已漸漸地被電子琴所取代。而騎馬迎娶新娘的儀式，也大多被汽車所取代。因此，此創作計畫透過三個多月的紀錄，將塔吉克婚禮的過程紀實攝影，最終展覽以攝影敘事的方式，結合動態影像與塔吉克鷹舞的互動體驗，以及問卷回饋的形式，反映社會大眾對於不同文化變遷的意見，也希望能特過此創作，對於塔吉克族文化的變遷與流失，做最後的紀錄與保存。 / The Xinjiang Tajik wedding is one of the United Nations Intangible Cultural Heritage. The Tajik wedding is particular, traditional which is only hold in wedding season. The Tajik is proud of their wedding ceremony. Via the One Belt One Road global economic strategy in mainland China, which leads to the dramatically change in Tashkurgan, the hometown of the Tajik. The location of Tashkurgan is in the hub of Central Asia and South Asia. The perfect location make Tashkurgan become the Fourth Special Economic Zone in China. Being the Special Economic Zone brought to the increasing developing, on the other hand, which harmed to the cultural maintenance as well. Most of the traditional Tajik houses were demolished. The China government built the modern house to replace the original tradition one. The change of the house which also changed the indoor space leading to the change to the Tajik wedding ceremony. Otherwise, the modern life also make many customs vanished. Instead of playing the Eagle-flute and Lamb-drum, some wedding were playing the keyboard . The custom about horse-riding to escort the bride was substituted by the car. Thus, this project has recorded the Tajik for three months. The process of the Tajik wedding was recorded with photography documentary. The exhibition that integrated Photography Narrative and dynamic phantom. In the exhibition, with the questionnaire and interaction in Eagle dance, which reflected the audience feedback to the other culture change. Furthermore, I hope that I could make a contribution to preserve images about the culture change for Tajik via this project.

This thesis is an attempt at understanding South African photography through the lens of Nontsikelelo “Lolo” Veleko, Tracy Rose, David Goldblatt, Jo Ractliffe and Santu Mofokeng. Through the works discussed this thesis intends to unpack photography as a complex medium similar to that of language and text, as well as attempt to understand how exploring South African experiences and spaces through the lens of photography shapes and mediates them. Furthermore it also attempts to understand how these experiences and spaces conversely affect the discourse of photography or at the very least our perception of it. Through these photographers and their works it is hoped that ultimately the interconnected relationship of exchanging codes that takes place between photography and society will be highlighted. The example of connectivity or dialogue I believe exists between the medium of photography and the physical/social and psychological spaces it photographs will be mediated through Deleuze and Guattari‟s conception of “the wasp and the orchid” where “the wasp becomes the orchid, just as the orchid becomes the wasp...an exchanging or capturing of each other‟s codes”. Other theorists I will be looking at include Vilém Flusser, focusing in particular on his book Towards a Philosophy of Photography, as well as Susan Sontag, Roland Barthes and others. The main aims and objectives of this thesis are to understand the veracity of the documentary image and whether or not the image harbours any objective truth, as well as whether truth, if it can truly be said to exist in the world, resides between the camera and the seen world. This dichotomy is further complicated by the matter of subject-hood and technical and philosophical understandings of the camera as an apparatus. At no point do I aim to be conclusive, rather it is hoped that by developing the dynamic tension between the theory and the image world that I will be able to bring fresh insight into the reading of a changing South African condition and the subject position of the photographer in relation to this condition.

En 1946, la parution à New York de l’Histoire de l’impressionnisme de John Rewald consacra l’aura d’une historiographie scientifique du mouvement, cautionnée par un investissement documentaire. Cette qualité l’opposait à un monde profane, dominé par une tradition orale et en particulier la réputation de certains témoignages. Un examen attentif ne saurait pourtant donner raison au postulat d’une nature exclusivement savante du document. Une documentation impressionniste se constitua en effet, dès le début du XXe siècle, par l’intermédiaire de producteurs hétéroclites, artistes, témoins, héritiers, critiques, journalistes, aussi bien qu’historiens professionnels, conservateurs et universitaires. Elle peut ainsi être envisagée autant comme le fruit d’une quête de la vérité factuelle que comme l’appropriation d’un objet d’étude populaire, à travers ses empreintes écrites et visuelles. L’appareillage des lectures de l’impressionnisme réunit de la sorte : les autographes ; les memorabilia, meubles ou immeubles chargés du souvenir des peintres ; les technologies photographique et cinématographique. Ces documents participaient en outre d’une culture visuelle plus vaste, incluant les monuments et les plaques commémoratives dans l’espace public, ou encore les motifs transformés par l’acte pictural en points de vue remarquables. L’étude historique et critique de l’écriture de l’histoire impressionniste comme (dé)monstration documentaire permet de revenir sur les circonstances sociales et visuelles de sa mise en œuvre, sur les enjeux de carrière auxquels elle participa, et sur les missions qui lui furent assignées au sein de différents discours sur l’art, savants et profanes. / In 1946 the publication of John Rewald’s History of Impressionism in New York consecrated the aura of the movement’s scientific historiography, supported by documentary investment. This quality confronted laymen’s narratives, which oral tradition and some witness’s accounts’ reputations dominated. Yet, a close consideration could not agree with the assumption of an exclusive scholarly nature of the document. Since the beginning of the 20th century, varied producers, such as artists, witnesses, heirs, critics, journalists, as well as professional historians, museum curators and academics formed an impressionist documentation. It thus can be interpreted as a quest for factual truth, as much as an appropriation of a research object through its written and visual marks. The equipment of impressionist readings hence gathered are: autographs; memorabilia, movable and physical assets as souvenirs of artists; photographic and cinematographic technologies. Moreover, these documents fit into a broader visual culture which included monuments and commemorative plaques of the public sphere, or motives transformed by pictorial acts into remarkable viewpoints. A historical and critical study of such a writing of history as documentary (de)monstration allows here to look back to its execution’s social and visual contexts, the career issues in which it participated, the goals that had been assigned to it within both scholars’ and laymen’s art discourses.

Gideon Mendel’s ongoing photographic work documenting HIV/ AIDS, first started in 1993, has seen shifts not only in production but also in the author’s representation of his subjects. This paper looks at three texts of Mendel’s work, taken from three different stages of Mendel’s career and reads the shifting paradigm taking Mendel from photojournalist to activist armed with documentary photography as a tool of social change. This thesis explores how different positionings as an author and different representations of the subjects, living and dying, with HIV/AIDS influences meaning-making, and what that means for documentary photography as a tool of social change.

Essa dissertação tem como objetivo principal identificar os mecanismos envolvidos na inserção da fotografia documental em museus de arte, durante a década de 1970, na cidade de São Paulo. São apresentados três estudos de caso sobre exposições fotográficas, de caráter temático, realizadas nesse período: A família Brasileira, realizada no Museu de Arte de São Paulo, em 1971; Xingu/Terra, parte integrante da 13ª Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, em 1975; e Bom retiro e luz: um roteiro, na Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, em 1976. A análise dos formatos das mostras e dos processos envolvidos em sua realização revelam dissonâncias e consonâncias entre os objetivos e interesses de seus proponentes e/ou realizadores. As exposições também são investigadas do ponto de vista das relações políticas da época, pois há a intenção de identificar as funções sociais adquiridas pela fotografia em seu processo de institucionalização. / This dissertation aims to identify the main mechanisms involved in the inclusion of documentary photography in art museums during the 1970s, in São Paulo. It presents three case studies about thematic and essay format photo exhibitions, accomplished at this period: A família brasileira, held at the Museu de Arte de Sao Paulo, in 1971; Xingu/Terra, part of the 13th Bienal International São Paulo, in 1975, and Bom retiro e luz: um roteiro in the Pinacoteca do Estado de Sao Paulo, in 1976. The analysis about the exhibitions formats and processes involved in their realization reveals dissonances and consonances between the purposes and interests of their proponents and/or directors. The exhibitions are also investigated from the standpoint of political relations of the time, because the intention is to identify the social functions of photography acquired in the process of its institutionalization.

Essa dissertação tem como objetivo principal identificar os mecanismos envolvidos na inserção da fotografia documental em museus de arte, durante a década de 1970, na cidade de São Paulo. São apresentados três estudos de caso sobre exposições fotográficas, de caráter temático, realizadas nesse período: A família Brasileira, realizada no Museu de Arte de São Paulo, em 1971; Xingu/Terra, parte integrante da 13ª Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, em 1975; e Bom retiro e luz: um roteiro, na Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, em 1976. A análise dos formatos das mostras e dos processos envolvidos em sua realização revelam dissonâncias e consonâncias entre os objetivos e interesses de seus proponentes e/ou realizadores. As exposições também são investigadas do ponto de vista das relações políticas da época, pois há a intenção de identificar as funções sociais adquiridas pela fotografia em seu processo de institucionalização. / This dissertation aims to identify the main mechanisms involved in the inclusion of documentary photography in art museums during the 1970s, in São Paulo. It presents three case studies about thematic and essay format photo exhibitions, accomplished at this period: A família brasileira, held at the Museu de Arte de Sao Paulo, in 1971; Xingu/Terra, part of the 13th Bienal International São Paulo, in 1975, and Bom retiro e luz: um roteiro in the Pinacoteca do Estado de Sao Paulo, in 1976. The analysis about the exhibitions formats and processes involved in their realization reveals dissonances and consonances between the purposes and interests of their proponents and/or directors. The exhibitions are also investigated from the standpoint of political relations of the time, because the intention is to identify the social functions of photography acquired in the process of its institutionalization.

Today, it is assumed that the one of the main functions of photography is only to show how the world changes with time, to capture the cities, people, life - everything that coexists with a man. Actually modern photography carries a deeper meaning. In fact, photography took a special place and became an integral part of every human life in the XXI century. The main objective of the master's work is research of an art photography, as a consequence and a context of the world’s photography. My objective is to examine the contribution that studied photographers have invested to the world’s photography. Tasks of the master's work are: - to examine the creative path of studied photographers - to examine the art properties of photography and its stylistic features - to examine the expressive features of the art photography and the frame structure / На сегодняшний день, принято считать, что одна из основных функций фотографии – лишь показать изменения мира во времени, запечатлеть города, людей, быт – все то, что сосуществует рядом с человеком. Но фотография это не только запись истории нашей жизни, но и вид искусства. На самом деле, современная фотография несет более глубокую смысловую и идейно–художественную нагрузку, которая в полной мере не изучена в российском искусствознании. Основной целью исследования является изучение творчества современных фотографов Р. Гибсона (1939, США) и Д. Морияма (1938, Япония) и их взаимосвязи с авангардными и поставангардными тенденциями XX века. Для достижения поставленной цели будут решены ряд задач: во–первых, обнародование в российском искусствознании нового материала о творческой деятельности двух значительных авторов современной художественной фотографии Р. Гибсона (1939, США) и Д. Морияма (1938, Япония). Во–вторых, выявление основных истоков их твоческого метода – авангарда (идеи Ман Рэя, Жака – Андре Буаффара, Билла Брандта) и «второго авангарда» ( позиции А. Хичкока и Д. Линча); в–третьих, описание и попытка классификации основных произведений этих фотографов.