The fourth edition of the international conference Fast Forward: Women in Photography – WOMEN, PHOTOGRAPHY, CONFLICT will take place on 16 and 17 November 2023, at the Technical Museum Nikola Tesla, Zagreb. The conference will explore the ways that women photographers have worked in countries affected by conflict and will generate new knowledge within this under researched area.
As the violation of women’s rights is one of the prominent aspects dominating conflict zones, this theme resonates with many realities encountered by women across the region (now as well in the past), including South Caucasian and Balkan countries. Over the years women photographers have been active in documenting violations of human rights, have advocated for women and initiated real changes in conflict or post conflict territories. Yet, within the contemporary historiography of photography, their contributions are frequently omitted. Discussion of conflict photography almost always revolves around high action war photography and is heavily dominated by a traditional male perspective.
Keynote speakers
Jananne Al-Ani and Susan Meiselas
Participants
Dana Ariel, Linda Bertelli & Agnese Ghezzi, Nina Berman, Chantal Edie Tube, Melanie Friend, Leslie Hakim-Dowek, Sini Kaipainen, Leonida Kovač, Sandra Križić Roban, Jenny Matthews, Nestan Nijaradze, Pippa Oldfield, Erica Payet, Una Popović, Judy Price, Rosângela Rennó, Kateryna Rodchenko, Sandra Vitaljić
Screening of films by Judy Price, Jananne Al-Ani, and Susan Meiselas, curated by Maria Kapajeva, will take place on 16 November 2023, at 5:30 PM in the F22 hall, Academy of Dramatic Arts, Frankopanska 22.
PROGRAMME
November 16
10:00 – 10:30 Welcomes by Sandra Križić Roban, Nestan Nijaradze and Anna Fox
10:30 – 11:30 Keynote by Jananne Al-Ani
THEME 1: Reassess
11:30 – 12:00 Kateryna Radchenko “The history of recovering after and during the conflict.
Photography as a method of reflection and rehabilitation”
12:00 – 12:30 Una Popović “Experience in the Crowd: Goranka Matić photography”
12:30 – 13:00 Nina Berman “Dressed Up, Stripped Down: Media Depictions of Conflict Rape”
13:00 – 13:30 Leonida Kovač “The Photographic Intersections”
[break]
THEME 2: Reveal
14:30 – 15:00 Chantal Edie Ntube “Gender-based violence during civil wars. How do women
photographers reshape our understanding of conflict?”
15:00 – 15:30 Melanie Friend “Behind the battlefields”
15:30 – 15:50 Dana Ariel “Punctuated Land: Conflict in Landscape and Language”
15:50 – 16:10 Leslie Hakim-Dowek “Erasures in an Imagined Geography”
16:10 – 16:30 Judy Rabinowitz Price “Quarries of Wandering Form” – Q&A Panel with Dana Ariel, Leslie Hakim-Dowek and Judy Rabinowitz Price
17:30 – 19:00 Screening of the video works by Judy Price, Jananne Al-Ani and Susan Meiselas, Scena F22, Academy of Dramatic Arts, Frankopanska 22
November 17
10:00 – 10:05 Introduction to the Day Two
THEME 3: Approach
10:05 – 10:35 Sini Kaipainen “A Conflict Photojournalist as a Celebrity-feminist: A Close
Reading on Lynsey Addario’s Instagram Profile as Digital Memoir”
10:35 – 11:05 Erica Payet “The work of women photojournalists in the First Gulf War (1990-91)”
11:05 – 11:35 Jenny Matthews “Threads of war”
11:35 – 12:05 Sandra Vitaljić “Exhibiting the war”
12:05 – 12:35 Rosângela Rennó “Good Apples | Bad Apples”
[break]
13:30 – 14:30 Keynote by Susan Meiselas in conversation with Jenny Matthews and Anna Fox
THEME 4: Herstory
14:30 – 15:00 Linda Bertelli & Agnese Ghezzi “Deconstructing Gerda Taro: Possibilities of a
Tradition Beyond the Canon in Women Photojournalism”
15:00 – 15:30 Sandra Križić Roban “Instead of taking ‘forensic pictures’, to heal through photography. Women documenting wars and their aftermaths”
15:30 – 16:00 Nestan Nijaradze “First World War in the Lens of the Georgian Woman War
reporter”
16:00 – 16:30 Pippa Oldfield “Beyond Bystanders: Women Photographers in the Mexican
Revolution (1910—1920)”
16:30 – 17:00 Key observations by the conference committee: Nestan Nijaradze, Sandra Križić Roban, Anna Fox and Maria Kapajeva
All bios and abstracts can be found in the programme online on Fast Forward website:
www.fastforward.photography/our-projects/conference4-croatia/
The conference is convened by Anna Fox (UCA) and Maria Kapajeva (UCA/EKA), Val Williams (LCC/UAL), Nestan Nijaradze (Tbilisi Photo Festival), and Sandra Križić Roban (Institute of Art History, Zagreb). The partners for the 4th edition of Fast Forward conference are Tbilisi Photo Festival, University for the Creative Arts (UCA) and London College of Communication (LCC) at University of the Arts London (UAL). The conference is supported by University for the Creative Arts. The conference has been made possible with financial support from the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia and the Ministry of Science and Education of the Republic of Croatia.
Conference organisation
Ana Ćurić, Institute of Art History, Zagreb
Technical Museum Nikola Tesla, Zagreb
Art Pavilion in Zagreb
Academy of Dramatic Arts, Zagreb
