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.

Am 15. Juli 2000 ist der Fotograf Christian Borchert im Alter von 58 Jahren in einem See wenige Kilometer nördlich von Berlin ertrunken. So plötzlich und grausam er aus dem Leben gerissen wurde, so sorgfältig und umsichtig wurde nach seinem Tod sein Nachlass gesichert. Vor allem der Verleger und Fotograf Hansgert Lambers, Borcherts enger Freund und Vertrauter, hat sich hier verdient gemacht, indem er die Aufteilung des Nachlasses auf verschiedene Archive und Sammlungen geschickt koordiniert hat. Im Zusammenspiel mit Ulrich Domröse von der Berlinischen Galerie, Hans-Ulrich Lehmann vom Dresdner Kupferstich-Kabinett sowie vor allem Wolfgang Hesse, dem damaligen Leiter der Deutschen Fotothek Dresden, fanden Borcherts umfangreiche fotografische Hinterlassenschaften in den Monaten nach seinem Tod den Weg in Institutionen, die sich in angemessener Weise um den ihnen jeweils anvertrauten Nachlassanteil zu kümmern vermochten. Die Berlinische Galerie erhielt mit rund 4.000 Ausstellungsabzügen und Druckvorlagen zunächst jene Bilder, die nach landläufigem Verständnis Borcherts künstlerisches Vermächtnis ausmachen: darunter zahlreiche hochwertige Abzüge mit den Blattmaßen 30 x 40 cm – seit den 1980er Jahren Borcherts bevorzugtes Ausstellungsformat. Aus diesem Fundus hat sodann das Dresdner Kupferstich-Kabinett rund 900 Abzüge erworben, bei denen es sich teils um Arbeiten mit spezifischem Dresden-Bezug und teils um Dubletten handelt. Weitere Dubletten wurden von der Berlinischen Galerie auch an die Fotografische Sammlung des Kunstmuseums Moritzburg Halle/Saale abgegeben. [Aus der Einleitung.]

Sprechen wir vom Archäologischen Archiv Sachsen (AAS), meinen wir damit die ungeheure, derzeit rund 22,5 Millionen (Stand: 31.12.2018) Objekte umfassende Sammlung vor- und frühgeschichtlicher Altertümer des Landesamtes für Archäologie Sachsen (LfA Sachsen). Dabei hat auch diese Sammlung einst klein angefangen. Den Grundstock legte 1802 der Großenhainer Rentamtmann Karl Benjamin Preusker (1786–1871), der Begründer der sächsischen Ur- und Frühgeschichtsforschung, in Form einer Privatsammlung. Sie fand 1853 Aufnahme in das Königliche Antikenkabinett, das bereits 1786 im Japanischen Palais eingerichtet worden war. Nachdem der Direktor des Königlich Mineralogischen Museums, Hanns Bruno Geinitz, 1874 eine Prähistorische Abteilung an seinem Hause gründen konnte und 1879 Johannes Deichmüller mit der Leitung dieser Sammlung beauftragt wurde, konnten alle prähistorischen Bestände der seinerzeitigen Königlichen Sammlungen in die Obhut des nunmehr (seit 1877) Königlich Mineralogisch-Geologischen Museums übernommen werden. [Aus der Einleitung.]

In revolving around the construction of history, this study rethinks the historical narrative of Tuija Lindström’s professorship at Fotohögskolan in the 1990s. Through this, the aim is to widen the understanding of the role of both the school and the professor’s position within the Swedish photographic field in the postmodern era. The main material consists of archival documents from Fotohögskolan, such as syllabuses, schedules, and staff records. Other important sources include interviews with people connected to the school and articles from newspapers and photographic journals. In order to examine power structures, the theoretical framework is built upon Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of the cultural field. To further understand this, critical discourse analysis is also used both as a method and theory. The study shows that the development of Fotohögskolan grew out of many events and endeavours traceable to broader structural struggles within the Swedish field of photography in the 1990s. The changes are shown to be connected to postmodern tendencies which influenced the whole field in a certain direction, and how the school became an important institution to manifest this. Further, the study shows that the professorship played an important role as a central figure for Swedish photography.

Si la littérature pour la jeunesse est fréquemment illustrée de dessins, qu’advient-il lorsque ces illustrations sont des photographies ? Le corpus d’œuvres pour la jeunesse illustrées de photographies, dont la recension était à peine entamée et qui s’avérait plus conséquent que supposé, requérait d’être étudié sous divers angles. L’ambition de cette thèse est de mettre en évidence les liens étroits entre les livres pour la jeunesse et l’illustration par la photographie et de mesurer les incidences des relations entre ces deux arts ou genres « mineurs », selon des perspectives historiques et géographiques larges. En circulant dans les littératures européennes et nord-américaines, de 1860 à nos jours, cette thèse démontre que la production photolittéraire pour enfants se constitue comme un véritable genre éditorial, même si aujourd’hui encore ces productions sont occultées sous l’appellation de « Littérature de jeunesse » ou, dans le monde anglo-saxon, sous celle de « Picturebooks ». Cette étude, s’inscrivant dans le champ de la photolittérature, met à jour les agencements des dispositifs phototextuels et examine comment texte et photographies s’articulent pour faire sens pour un jeune lecteur. Elle retrace aussi les liens entre quelques théories pédagogiques et la réception critique de ces ouvrages, exposant la façon dont elles sont solidaires de certaines options éditoriales. / Literature for the young is often illustrated by drawings, but what happens when the illustrations are photographs? Only recently has the corpus of photographically-illustrated children’s literature begun to be examined. It is proving to be much more extensive than had previously been imagined, and necessitates a study from several different angles. The aim of this thesis is to highlight the close links between children’s books and photographic illustration and to measure the implications of the relationship between these two arts (considered ‘minor’ from a broad historical or geographical perspective) Covering European and North American literature from 1860 to the present day this thesis shows that photoliterary production for children is in fact a publishing genre in its own right, although today many such productions are still filed under the label “Picturebooks” or in French, “Littérature de jeunesse” [children’s literature]. By invoking the field of photoliterature, this study brings to light the layout of various phototextual devices and examines how text and photographs combine to create meaning for a young reader. It also retraces the relations between certain pedagogical theories and the critical reception of these works, revealing the manner in which both are inextricably bound up with particular publishing decisions.

Travail réalisé en cotutelle avec l'Université Rennes 2 (France) / Désormais, nous sommes tous photographes. Nos téléphones intelligents nous permettent de capter, de modifier et de partager nos clichés sur les réseaux en moins d’une minute, tant et si bien que l’image photographique est devenue une nouvelle forme de langage. Réciproquement, serions-nous également tous écrivains ? Il existe en effet une véritable légitimité historique à penser que la notion d'écrivain, comme celle de photographe, s'étend le long d'un paradigme allant de la « simple » possession d'une aptitude technique jusqu'à la gloire des plus fortes figures de la vie culturelle collective. Cette thèse vise à déterminer comment se constitue une nouvelle mythologie de l’image photographique à l’ère du numérique, comprenant aussi bien la réévaluation du médium argentique vieillissant que l’intégration d’un imaginaire propre à ces technologies dont nous n’avons pas encore achevé de mesurer l’impact culturel sur nos sociétés. À cet égard, la perspective littéraire est riche d’enseignements en termes culturels, esthétiques ou même ontologiques, puisque la littérature, en sa qualité de relais du fait photographique depuis près de deux siècles, a pleinement participé à son invention : c’est là du moins l’hypothèse de la photolittérature. En cette période de transition technologique majeure, il nous revient de cerner les nouvelles inventions littéraires de la photographie, pour comprendre aussi bien les enjeux contemporains du fait photographique que ceux de la littérature. / Nowadays, we are all photographers. Our smart phones allow us to take, edit and share our snapshots on social media in less than a minute, to the extent that the photographic image has become a new form of language. Reciprocally, have we all become writers as well? There truly is historical legitimacy in seeing the notion of the writer, like that of the photographer, as spanning a paradigmal spectrum, running from “simple” possession of technical aptitude, to the glory of the loftiest figures in our collective cultural life. This thesis aims to determine how the new mythology around the photographic image takes shape in the digital age, while also re-evaluating the aging medium of film, as well as integrating a newly imagined sphere of ideas surrounding these new technologies, for which we have yet to measure the cultural impact on our societies. In this respect, a literary perspective is rich in cultural and even ontological lessons, since literature has interacted with photography for nearly two centuries, and thus contributed to its invention : this is at least the central hypothesis of photoliterature. In this period of major technological transition, we must therefore identify photography’s new literary inventions, so that we can better understand the contemporary issues surrounding both the worlds of photography and literature.

While the role of photography in enforcing hegemonic ideologies has been amply studied, this thesis addresses the under-researched topic of how photography undermined dominant narratives in specific historical circumstances. I argue that, in the later part of the long nineteenth century, photographs were used to represent the natural world in contexts where their functions were uncertain and their capacities not clearly defined, and that these hesitations allowed for the expression of resistances to dominant social attitudes towards nature. I analyse how these divergences were articulated through three independent case studies, each addressing a corpus of photographs which has been marginalised in scholarly discourse. The case studies all concern photographs of vegetation. The first one discusses photographs produced around Fontainebleau during the Second French Empire, commonly understood as auxiliary materials for Barbizon painters, and argues that they were in fact autonomous representations, reflecting marginal modes of experiencing nature which resisted its prevailing construction as spectacle. The second case study examines a photographic series depicting Amazonian vegetation, published between 1900 and 1906, and shows how, in attempting to satisfy conflicting ideological demands, these photographs undermined the hierarchies enforced upon the natural world by colonial science. The third case study analyses photographs from an early twentieth-century environmentalist treatise, and demonstrates how, while the author's discourse seemingly complied with conventional attitudes towards nature, the photographs instituted an ethical stance opposed to early conservation's aesthetic focus and anthropocentrism. Throughout the case studies, I argue that the photographs were consubstantial to the emergence of these resistances; that dissenting representations stemmed from a tension between their producers' lived experience and the ideological frameworks which informed each context; and that this process engendered remarkable formal innovations, which are not usually associated to non-artistic images. I contend that radical renewals of visual expression occur in all representational contexts, as image producers adapt their tools or forge new ones according to circumstances, and that more attention must be paid to such visual innovations outside the field of artistic production.

In this dissertation I investigate photographs not only as images of something, or as objects we can hold, but I also investigate how they are acts grounded in place. That is, I consider the photograph as event. The backbone of my research is a hybrid social science and visual art undertaking in which I produce both academic texts and art installations through visual inquiry into the intensely imagined places that are Canadian national parks. I examine how the myth of wilderness is made concrete in visual images of Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta. I explore the situatedness of photography through ethnographic and archival research into the conditions that produced over four-hundred photographs of Waterton from the late 19th century to the present. This research advances understanding of how specific historical photographic events shape dominant systems of environmental knowledge in Canada. I explore the intertwined histories of place and representation in Waterton over the past 150 years and how they emerge in the present. To unravel the politics of representation in national parks in Canada I address three key questions: First, how do images that portray and represent wilderness in Canada affect not only our imagination about national parks, but our experiences in, and actions in, national parks? In particular, how are photographs not just representations of national parks but how do we form a relationship to space and place through them? Second, I carry out a visual investigation of Waterton Lakes National Park to study the photograph as event, and ask, how photographs, not just as images and objects, are acts grounded in place? Finally, I ask: What new approaches can be deployed to investigate existing visual collections and to bring them to bear on the history and present of the national park space? I describe how visual methods can generate new ways of thinking about photography and place.

Cette thèse propose une étude posant les bases et les origines de l’œuvre photographique de Lucien Clergue afin d’en permettre un meilleur positionnement dans l’histoire de la photographie. Une étude et des recherches qui n’avaient jamais été entreprises jusqu’à présent. Les éléments biographiques de la première partie ont été établis à l’aide de documents inédits issus de fonds privés, celui d’André Bernard particulièrement, mis à ma disposition pour étayer ce travail. Ils permettent de couvrir toute l’enfance de Lucien Clergue jusqu’à ces premières photographies. La seconde partie constitue le cœur de la thèse. En m’appuyant sur la production photographique et un très important fonds documentaire, j’établis de quelle manière et avec quels soutiens, particulièrement ceux de Pablo Picasso et Jean Cocteau, une œuvre se construit entre 1953 et 1965 et s’affirme comme esthétique du contre-jour. Ensuite, j’apporte une synthèse de l’évolution de l’œuvre, ses thèmes, ses déclinaisons, sa diffusion, notamment bibliophilique, et les actions transverses de Lucien Clergue ayant favorisé l’émergence de Manitas de Plata, et l’épanouissement de la photographie, en lien avec les Rencontres d’Arles. Les éléments avancés ont été confirmés par récolement ou recherches dans des documents contemporains des faits, ce qui a permis d’en rétablir le cours véritable, certains ayant été dénaturés par de multiples répétitions ou parfois par les qualités de conteur de Lucien Clergue. Cette thèse détermine également la réelle incidence des acteurs directs ou indirects ayant contribué à l’existence de cette œuvre photographique dont l’ossature repose sur une dramaturgie intrinsèque. / This thesis, presents the foudations and origines of the work in pohtography of Lucien Clergue in order to better relate it in the history of photography. An overall study and many researches that have never been done until now. The biographical elements used in the first part have never been published and come solely from private funds, particulary that of André Bernard, they have been available to me to corroborate my work. These elements allow to cover Lucien Clergue’s childhood up to his first photographs. The second part is the heart of the thesis, it is where, by relying on his photographic production and a very broad source base, I am able to establish inwhich manner and with what supports, particulary those of Pablo Picaso and Jean Cocteau, a life’s work is being built between 1953 and 1965 and emerges as the esthetic of the backlit. Then, I bring forward a synthesis of the evolution of the work, its principal recurring themes, its variations, its diffusion mostly bibliophily, as well as other various actions of Lucien Clergue which promoted the uprising of Manitas de Plata, and the blossoming of photography, relying on the « Rencontres Internationales de la photographie d’Arles ».All the elements put forward have been confirmed by retracing or research from contemporary documents of pure facts, which enabled to establish their real occurrence, as some had been relieved of their true nature by multiple repetitions or at times the narrative talent of Lucien Clergue. This thesis also determines the role that each actor played directly or indirectly and contribute to the existence of this photographic work with a blackbone that does rely intrinsically dramaturgy.

Der Band enthält die Beiträge der Tagung „Die Masse macht's? Erschließungsmethoden und Erkenntnismöglichkeiten bei der Arbeit mit Massenbeständen“ im Stadtmuseum Dresden am 16. November 2018. Auf Einladung der Veranstalter (Stadtmuseum Dresden, Kustodie der Technischen Universität Dresden, Sächsische Landesstelle für Museumswesen an den Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen Dresden) stellen Fachleute unterschiedlicher Disziplinen Probleme und Lösungen bei der Erschließung, Erforschung und Publikation von kultur-, natur- und wissenschaftshistorischen Massensammlungen zur Diskussion. Dabei ist der Blick über die realen Sammlungen hinaus auf virtuelle Verbundsysteme und digitale Publikationen erweitert worden. / The volume contains the contributions of the conference “Do the masses make it? Development methods and knowledge possibilities when working with mass collections” in City Museum Dresden on 16 November 2018. At the invitation of the organizers (City Museum Dresden, Academic Heritage of Technical University Dresden, Saxon State Office for Museum Affairs on the Dresden State Art Collections), experts from various disciplines provide problems and solutions on the development, research and publication of mass collections of cultural, natural and scientific history that will be up for discussion. The view has been extended beyond the real collections to virtual network systems and digital publications.