Photography and Its Citizens

Author(s): Ariella Azoulay and Nato Thompson

Source: Aperture , Spring 2014, No. 214, Documentary, Expanded (Spring 2014), pp. 52-
57
Published by: Aperture Foundation, Inc.

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Emily
Emily Jacir,
Jacir,
Scene Scene
from from
Giuseppe Bellecca's 1971
film La donna palestinese
avanguardia delta
delta donna
donna
araba (The Palestinian
Woman—the vanguard
of Arab Women), on the
moviola in the Audiovisual
Archive of Workers' and
Democratic Movements
(AAMOD), Rome, Italy,
2010

Courtesy Emily Jacir

Photography and Its

Citizens

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 Nato Thompson, Creative Time's chief curator,
talks to theorist Ariella Azoulay about citizen journalism,
the artist as newsmaker, and how we might rethink
the role of collaboration in photography.

Nato Thompson: You've done many interviews around your

2008 book, The Civil Contract of Photography, but I can
imagine that over the years your concept has evolved. Could
Over the past decade Ariella Azoulay has emerged as one of you talk about that?
the most rigorous commentators on the political dimensions
of photography. Her many books, grappling with such themes Ariella Azoulay: The book's main assumption is that a civil
as human rights and state violence, include the celebrated contract regularizes the relationships among the protagonists
The Civil Contract of Photography (Zone Books, 2008), which involved in the event of photography, mainly photographers,
offered a fresh consideration of photography's relationship to photographed persons, and spectators. Although I can
ethics, citizenship, and catastrophe. In her introduction to that point to this contract in different historical moments where
book, Azoulay writes, "The widespread use of cameras by people its terms were explicitly or implicitly negotiated, it was
around the world has created more than a mass of images; it has still a kind of fiction, as such a contract was never written,
created a new form of encounter.. .thus opening new possibilities When these negotiations are taken into consideration,
of political action and forming new conditions for its visibility"— photography can no longer be reduced to the act of taking
an acknowledgment of how deeply the expansion of photography the photograph—shooting (as in Susan Sontag's writings)
is reshaping all manner of political experience. or capturing an effervescent moment (as in Roland Barthes's
In addition to her work as a writer, Azoulay has directed thinking). The photograph is just one possible outcome of the
the documentary films Civil Alliances, Palestine, 47-48 (2012); event of photography. Thus, when a camera is used in torture
I Also Dwell Among Your Own People: Conversations withAzmi rooms, and the photos are suppressed from the public's eye,
Bishara (2004), about Bishara, a Palestinian intellectual; and the event of photography could—and should—be reconstructed
The Food Chain (2004), an investigation into hunger in Palestine. from other documents, testimonies, and so on. The inaccessibility
She currently teaches at Brown University and is working of such photographs, which might have been censored or
with photographers Susan Meiselas and Wendy Ewald on a destroyed, doesn't annul the existence of an event in which
curatorial project exploring the role of collaboration—between a person was tortured and photographed.
photographer and subject—in the medium's story. In the following Following the publication of the book, I began to experiment
conversation, Azoulay's unique vantage point offers a useful means with the civil and material implications of images through the
for understanding recent political upheaval and the active role construction of several photographic archives. The first archive
the photograph plays in both facilitating and understanding was of forty years of the Israeli occupation of Palestine, composed
these events. Azoulay's rethinking of photography emphasizes of hundreds of photographs. Gradually, I understood that what
participation and inclusion, and here she aptly notes that our I actually tried to archive was not photographs as documents of
current moment is marked by "sharing with others—different past events but photographs as generators of events in which I,
forms of colaboring, cothinking, comapping." —The Editors and others, participate.

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Example
Example of "Trayvoning"
of "Trayvoning"
Internet meme
Twitter

NT: Are there particular mechanisms with the archive that we are susceptible to embody both these positions merely by
you have found useful, or ways to demonstrate this contract who we are and by what we own.
that may become clearer over time?
NT: I'm curious about how the role of photography in the
AA: Reading photographs as a historical source is frustrating and political landscape has radically shifted. You mentioned in
promising. Photographs are usually archived and preserved with a previous interview that both the presence of photography
minimal information that doesn't necessarily allow one to locate as well as the act of photography itself are shaping the
them in their context of production, and when they are archived political-cultural realm. How does that change the discourse
with some information, it usually involves political categories around The Civil Contract of Photography, especially when
that determine that what we are looking at are "refugees," "illegal considering the ubiquity of photography?
infiltrators," "suspects." We are invited to repeat these categories
as if they designate what is in the photograph. But the violence AA: We should think about ubiquity not only as a technological
of making someone a refugee is reaffirmed by our spectatorship issue but in relation to myriad modes of use, distribution, and
position if we continue to refer to the photograph as depicting production. If we read the history of photography not as a history
a state (a refugee) and not an event or an action (the expulsion of masters but as a practice in which many people have been
of a person from her homeland). These kinds of political involved, ubiquity can be understood differently. I am working
categories that we automatically project onto a photograph's with Susan Meiselas and Wendy Ewald on a project that asks what
subject reveal how easy it is to be complicit in sovereign violence the history of photography looks like when considered from the
through photography. When people negotiate this subtle perspective of collaboration. Coming from Israel, where the
invitation to collusion, we can say that they activate the civil notion of "collaboration" is linked to different forms of blackmail
contract of photography. When teens all around the U.S. dressed and political oppression, I'm particularly intrigued by the variety
up in a hoodie and laid on the ground with an iced tea bottle of types of collaborative relations, the empowering but also the
and Skittles, photographing themselves as Trayvon Martin, and problematic and coercive.
spread the photographic word that they "are all Trayvon Martin," Ewald's and Meiselas's engagement with photography
it can be interpreted as a mere act of identification with the since the '70s makes clear that "capturing," long acknowledged
victim and be criticized as patronizing. But it should also be as the essence of photography, is only one aspect of the medium,
interpreted as an act of misidentification with the perpetrator, Exchanging, buying, collecting, hiding, reading photographs
knowing too well that under a political regime where George together, destroying photographs, or printing photographs
Zimmerman was acquitted, one has to struggle to be neither on scarves or plates—these aspects are no less essential to
a victim nor a perpetrator. In our world, where the accounts photography. Today, capturing is, by definition, intertwined
of imperialism, slavery, and colonialism have not been settled, with connected activities—cropping, sharing, tweeting, posting,

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tagging. Collaboration has always existed in photography
but it is usually denied or not acknowledged. In the '70s, when
several photographers sought explicitly to collaborate with
their subjects, they actually redefined the profession of the
photographer in distinction from the authorial position of one
who shoots and runs away with his photographs. I think that
it is not a coincidence that two of the most important advocates
for collaboration were women—Susan and Wendy.

NT: Thinking of events that I've participated in, like Occupy

Wall Street, or, even earlier, anti-globalization protest
movements, as well as public art projects I've facilitated,
there is a very ambivalent... not even ambivalent, but tense
relationship with the collaborative nature of photography,
insomuch as people are very aware that their images are often
used against them in the uneven playing field of power that
is the photographic image.

AA: We cannot deny anymore that photography is not about the

world, and therefore outside it, but is rather part ofthe world.
Civil sovereignty, as I define it in my work, is inclusive of all
the participants in the event of photography. The suspension
of the privileged position of the photographer, as I suggested
in Civil Contract, and the reconceptualization of photography
as an activity in which many participate, transforms others from I"1"*#' > - fM
passive or secondary positions to participants whose claims can _ / »«.„ ^||1
no longer be automatically ignored.
The book I am now writing is an effort to reconceptualize
revolution based on the different ways people participate, share,
and perform it in public. When revolution is understood not as
a will to seize or preserve power but instead as a reorganization I on. y.ar of mt.rv.ntion, for work.ro «nd th.ir right,
of the body politic, revolution emerges as a language that is I in th* oon8truoti'<"> '»• augg.nh.im, Lou.r., and
H other institutions in Abu Dhabi BTulflabor org I
constantly shaped by those who use it, as we have seen in the ■ ' I
last decade around the globe.
Poster
Posterfor "52for
Weeks,"
"52 Weeks,"
aaone-year
one-year
campaign that
campaign that
NT: Certainly we have seen that in the last few years. began in October 2013 began in October 2013
to draw attention to the

But the growth of civic journalism, of decentered forms

conditions of migrant Cond
of newsmaking, has radically changed how people get their laborers building museums
laborers building museums
in Abu Dhabi
information. We see, too, the robust conversations around
Gulflablor.org
democracy and civil society that are happening globally
as well as growing online forms of news production.
Can you talk about this growth of newsmaking as it relates
to photography?

AA: It is linked to the same shift that we spoke about earlier—

a movement from the omnipresent notion of capturing to a
more collaborative understanding of newsmaking. Collaborative
projects such as "Activestills" in Palestine-Israel or the media
activist MTL collective, are not just giving a different perspective _ _
on the "news"; they, rather, make "non-news," or "renew-old- We C
news"; they are seeking to reconstruct the modus operandi of „1_ •_ — 4. — *.1_ _
what I call regime made disaster pnOIOgTSpIiy IS 110t
Different kinds of citizen journalism are part of an effort world, and
to replace a vision of "others as victims" with a more complex ■» , • . •
understanding of the way privileged citizens are involved in OUt
the production of those regime-made disasters. Today, we have
activist spectators. Edward Snowden, who leaked a trove of highly
classified documents, should be understood as a citizen who
exercised what I argue is an inalienable human right: not to be a
perpetrator. His actions have little to do with the right to privacy
but with this new right claimed by citizens who find themselves
involved in the production of regime-made disasters. This right
is implied in the Occupy movements as well as in many other
forms of protest. Civil journalism exemplifies this shift, which
I think is crucial in our capacity to coimagine and coshape the

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 world we are living in, to expand the way that we citizens
participate in the production and perpetuation of regime -made
disasters.

NT: In the given media landscape today, we see that a

sense of the commons has grown as sharing and collective
communication has displaced authorship. How do you
see these tendencies playing out in terms of the future
of journalism?

Todav WG have activist AA: Without pretending to tame the unpredictability of the
_j future, we can say that the future of journalism cannot but be
spectators. Edward Snowden, affected by the massive efforts of visual activists around the
world. They all do different things, but I see one common thread:
who leaked a trove of highly the insistence that the world was shaped violently in the era of
classified documents, should colonialism and imperialism. Wealth distribution, political and
economic inequality—were construed as a fait accompli, as a past
be understood as a citizen event, and now the past is over. Information and media activism,
wvr||Q exercised what I ar&fue as we^ as c'v" journalism, is an effort to insist the past is no
# # ... • . continuous past in which we participate, not merely as spectators.
IS an inalienable human rights Much photographic theory made the past a clos
Barthes, for example, saw the photograph as the locus of death.
not to be a perpetrator. When you think ofWalter Benjamin's observations from the
'30s regarding the potentiality of any reader to become a writer
as well as his redefinition of the labor division between author
and public, it is clear that the "anyone" of the '30s was very
limited and mainly included citizens already benefiting from
a privileged position. Today, the "anyone" might include refugees,
sans-papiers, illegal workers, or colonized people as citizens.
The future of journalism cannot be limited to journalism as
a profession but to our capacity to imagine new forms that
will help transcend the genealogy of colonies, mandates, and
sovereign states and their knowledge regimes. This is what makes
our historical moment so exciting. All around the globe, people
are inventing—and sharing with others—different forms of
colaboring, cothinking, comapping.

Sketches
Sketches of of
alleged
alleged
prisoner
prisoner abuses
abuseson display
on display
at
at the
thePrisoners
Prisoners
Affairs
Affairs
Ministry
Ministry in in
Gaza
Gaza
City,City,
February
February 13,13,
2005.
2005.
Photograph
Photograph by by
AbidAbid
Katib Katib
©
© Abid
AbidKatib/Getty
Katib/Getty
Images
Images

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NT: There's both a political and aesthetic dimension to
what you're saying. I see it in the work that I'm doing with
Creative Time, in particular in relationship to our alternative
journalism platform Creative Time Reports. The horizon
for what's possible in terms of cultural production today
is broadening. There's great interdisciplinary work that's
reflexive, ambiguous at times, that is hard-core journalism
and engaged activism.

AA: Creative Time is amazing in this sense of redefining the

professional position of the artist or the photographer. There
are two considerations here, on the one hand how to perform
as a citizen in a community and not as a citizen of a sovereign
power, and on the other hand, how to engender new aesthetics
through which this participatory process can resonate.
Emily Jacir's report from Italy, which explores an archive of
little-known films by leftist Italian filmmakers focusing on
Palestinian society, is exemplary not only in this sense but
also in the way of making one's history part of others' histories.
Can you talk about how Creative Time's work affects the
conceptual and political understanding of our time?

NT: Edward Bernays, who founded the field of public

relations in the early nineteenth century, wrote: "In order
to appeal to the instincts and fundamental emotions of
the public.. .the public relations counsel must create news
around his ideas.... He must isolate ideas and develop them
into events so that they can be more readily understood
and so they may claim attention as news." Bernays embodies
the shift from news being an attempt at objectivity to the
self-conscious manipulation of the interpretation of events
through the use of emotion and narrative. In other words,
the Bernays version of news is pretty much what we
have today.
Top:
Creative Time
*
Reports allows artists
Occupy
to enter into a I°p:
demonstrator
.
Occupy demonstrator
field where "news" has become a landslide of narrative- in Tulsa, Oklahoma,
in Tulsa, Oklahoma,
October 15, 2011.
based loose constructions pretending to interpret events. October is, 2011.
Photograph by
, , , Photograph by
In his video essay Speak Mouthless, Beirut-based artist jeff Lautenberger
Jeff Lautenberger
Tony Chakar wrestles with the limits of words in expressing © Jeff Lautenberger/
© Jeff Lautenberger/
, . , . ~ , * 1 o • j AP Photo via The Tulsa World
AP Photo via The Tulsa World
outrage and resistance in the wake of the A
the rise of the Syrian atrocities. The video shows images Bottom: Tony chakar,
Bottom: Tony Chakar,
Speak Mouthless, 2013
of protesters, with tape covering their mouths, holding ^°U)th,e"'2013
(video still)
placards. One reads, "Why do you want to know? What is © and courtesy Tony chakar
© and courtesy Tony Chakar

the purpose of all these seminars, roundtables, symposiums,

publications? What will they lead to? What is most upsetting
is this false sense of urgency and this sense of amazement that
'these things' are still possible in the twenty-first century."
Chakar's work is just one example of numerous
artistic-journalistic works that attempt to say the unsaid,
poke holes in the power structures of news media, try to
make us conscious as viewers of our own sense of power,
and, ultimately, bring that complicated sense of truth
to light.

AA: It is tempting to say that protesters today are using similar

visual and spatial tactics as those used by artists in order to
articulate their claims in the public sphere. But having studied
how, since the eighteenth century, revolution has functioned
as a language, I think it is actually the other way around: it is the
artists who have only recently discovered the potential of using
bodily gesture and collective public action.
Ariella Azoulay's recent books include
From Palestine to Israel: A Photographic Nato Thompson is chief curator of
Record of Destruction and State Formation, Creative Time. His most recent book
1947-1950 (Pluto Press, 2011) and is Seeing Power: Socially Engaged
Civil Imagination: The Political Ontology Art in the Age of Cultural Production
of Photography (Verso, 2012). (Melville House, 2014).

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