From photojournalism to the archive: women photographers in Latin America

This course is based on a conceptual axis that articulates visual culture, political culture and the idea of the archive in photography. As Ariella Aïsha Azoulay defends in Potential History, undoing the colonial logic also involves questioning the use of political concepts such as citizens, sovereignty, human rights, art and archives, as well as categories such as the new and the neutral, which reinforce the imperialist drive to ‘progress'.

The women photographers discussed in this course propose original and diverse approaches to the notion of the archive, whether it be the archive of the present, produced by journalistic work, or questioning and re-signifying institutional or private photographic archives, and therefore producing new ones. In this way, they challenge official historical narratives related to moments of social and political conflicts in Latin America in the second half of the 20th century.

Through the photographic work of women like Susan Meiselas, Lucila Quieto, Paula Luttringer, Nair Benedicto and Rosa Gauditano, the course proposes a conceptual and historical analysis on this politically engaged photography which has a great impact on contemporary visuality and was carried out by a social subject often invisible or relegated to the background: the woman.

About the lecturer

Dr. Erika Zerwes is a lecturer and researcher in photography and gender in its various aspects and its political dimensions. She has a PhD in History, with a séjour doctoral at the École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales de Paris - EHESS, and a Postdoc at the Museum of Contemporary Art of University of São Paulo, MAC-USP. She is the author of the books Tempo de Guerra: cultura visual e cultura política nas fotografias dos fundadores da agência Magnum, 1936-1947; Cultura Visual, imagens na modernidade, which was a 2019 Jabuti Prize finalist; and the upcoming Mulheres Fotógrafas / Mulheres Fotografadas. Fotografia e Gênero na América Latina.