ARTS 287 Social Documentary Photography: A New Civil Contract
In this course, we will examine historical and contemporary approaches to social documentary photography—visual anthropology, citizen journalism, and agitprop, among other forms—and consider the efficacy of photographic images in both garnering awareness and persuading actors to enact sociopolitical change. We will draw consensus on our understandings of “the real" in contemporary art and the broader media landscape—in tandem to and opposition with staged, scripted, and/or verisimilar depiction modes—while examining the ethics of capturing another's likeness. Over the course of the semester, we will delve into critical writings and works by documentarians/collectives that bring the (neo-)liberal humanist documentary model into complex new territories. Students will focus on a community, situation, or environment of their own choosing, using pictures and words to examine the unique situations unfolding in front of their cameras. Together, we will confront our role as image-makers, our ethical relationship to our subjects, and ruminate on the civic value of the social documentary form today.
The social documents experienced and discussed in class will be used to interrogate systems of differentiation and exclusion that are instrumentalized to preserve patriarchy and racial capitalism. Examining the codification of gender, race, and class through photographic likeness, we will trace a line of resistance in documentary works that offer a response to status quo representations. Our investigations will be grounded in the American Experience—gender queering in the American city, depictions of and by Native Peoples, the foregrounding of white suffering in times of common strife, and lived Black experiences seen from within and without, among other themes.
Core Requirements Met
- Fine Arts
- United States Diversity