In Luganda, the widest spoken minority language in Uganda, the word for photographs is 'ebifananyi'. However, 'ebifananyi' does not, contrary to the etymology of the word photographs, relate to... Show moreIn Luganda, the widest spoken minority language in Uganda, the word for photographs is 'ebifananyi'. However, 'ebifananyi' does not, contrary to the etymology of the word photographs, relate to light writings. 'Ebifananyi' instead means things that look like something else. 'Ebifananyi' are likenesses. My research project explores the historical context of this particular conceptualisation of photographs and its consequences for present day visual culture in Uganda. It also discusses my artistic practice as research method, which led to the digitisation of numerous historical collections of photographs. This resulted in eight books and in exhibitions that took place in Uganda and in Europe. The research was conducted in collaboration with both human and non-human actors. These actors included photographs, their owners, Ugandan picture makers and visitors to the exhibitions that were organised in Uganda and Western Europe. This methodology led to insights into differences in the production and uses of, and into meanings given to, photographs in both Ugandan and Dutch contexts. Understanding differences between ebifananyi and photographs shapes the communication about photographs between Luganda and English speakers. Reflection on the conceptualisations languages offer for objects and for sensible aspects of the surrounding world helps prevent misunderstandings in communication in general. Show less
Through photography, people share what landscapes mean to them. In her dissertation, which is interdisciplinary between art history, cultural geography and landscape architecture, Van den... Show moreThrough photography, people share what landscapes mean to them. In her dissertation, which is interdisciplinary between art history, cultural geography and landscape architecture, Van den Heuvel introduces a new methodology that consists of three steps: ‘georeferencing’, ‘geospecific comparison’ and ‘geogeneric comparison’. The method helps to analyse how landscape pictures create meaning of a location or – to speak with Yi-Fu Tuan – ‘make place’. Van den Heuvel first applies her method to three case studies in the Dutch landscape: the Haarlemmermeer area around Schiphol Airport near Amsterdam as photographed by Theo Baart and published in the photobook Werklust. Biography of a Landscape in Transition (2015); a tree nursery in the banks of the Lower Rhine as photographed by Gerco de Ruijter for the photograph Baumschule #2 (2009) and the nature reserve of a heath area near Laren in the Gooi-area in the Central Netherlands as photographed by Kim Boske for the photograph Mapping 5 (2008-2009). Conclusively is stated, that photographers do not only work with the physical elements that appeared before their cameras. Also, the photographer workds rhetorically with compositions and motives that persist from famous landscape painting to create meaning of a place. Show less
Thisinterdisciplinary research argues how a scrupulous reading of the medium ofphotography, through geography and philosophy, can shed light on thespatiotemporal account of the concept of place. To... Show moreThisinterdisciplinary research argues how a scrupulous reading of the medium ofphotography, through geography and philosophy, can shed light on thespatiotemporal account of the concept of place. To do this, it breaks down theparticipatory elements of photography into six tropes: the photographer, thecamera, the photograph, the photographic image, the spectator, and thephotographic genre. Subsequently, it looks at each of the aforementioned tropesthrough the lens of place, indicating how a place cannot be the content of adefinite representation, as if fixed in time and space. In other words, insteadof analysing place through space, this research gives precedence to the formerto argue how place creates space (the photographer), how it fixes space (thecamera), how it passes through space (the photograph), how it interpolatesspace (the photographic image), how it promises space (the spectator), and howit operationalizes space in-between the text and the image (the photographicgenre). Therefore, rather than viewing space as an abstract entity thatcontinually evades representation, this dissertation demonstrates theimperceptible, intangible, and intractable aspects of each partaker ofphotography through its unprecedented theoretical approach. Show less
