Processes of migration and flight after 2015 and their depiction, perception and distribution through photography form the initial point of the workshop and subsequent publication “Nomadic Camera”.

The workshop seeks to investigate the technical, medial and aesthetic relationship of photography and contemporary migration, historical exile and flight as the pivotal discursive setting in which specific forms of mobility extending from the mid-nineteenth century to today have been negotiated.

The concept adapts the term ‘nomadic’ – a transitory form of existence – beyond static concepts of being and national boundaries (Demos 2017). ‘Nomadic’ refers to a form of mobility that establishes continuities and discontinuities with other terms, such as ‘travel’, ‘displacement’ and ‘exile’ (Kaplan 1996). At the same time, displacements are intrinsically related to experiences of connectivities and disconnectivities, including place-making and belonging, ruptures between life and work in the past and present, experiences of loss and challenges of beginnings.

Viewing photography as a formative part of this history of mobility and migration, we will examine the interconnection between the concepts of ‘nomadic’ and ‘camera’. From its introduction in the early-nineteenth century and throughout numerous technical developments and innovations, photography has been a mobile medium closely tied to equipment, social conditions and cultural framings. Setting out from this hypothesis, the workshop and publication “Nomadic Camera” will centre around the following questions: how are dislocations interconnected with the technical evolutions of the mobile medium of photography? In which way do camera technologies presuppose and affect the visual formulation of exile, migration and flight experiences? What modifications in aesthetics and style, methods and practices of photography do temporary mobility, geographical relocation and resettlement imply?

The workshop and the resulting publication will be arranged into four main sections:

Section A: Techniques, technologies
Section B: Body, agents, performativity
Section C: Media narrations, narratives
Section D: Circulation, archive, memory.

Information on registration will follow shortly.

Organizers

Burcu Dogramaci (Käte Hamburger Research Centre, LMU Munich)
Winfried Gerling (European Media Studies – University of Applied Sciences Potsdam/University Potsdam and ZeM – Brandenburg Centre for Media Studies, Potsdam)
Jens Jäger (University of Cologne)
Birgit Mersmann (University of Duisburg-Essen)