Abstract
How is power spatialized? How do photographs make visible the problems of the world? Images produce feelings, and as they produce feelings they reconfigure the distribution of power. This body of photographic research concerns the power structures of historical narratives, image making, and the systems of power which govern the inscription, maintenance, and routinization of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Photography makes visible the problems of history. While every society has a relationship with its past, the processes of World Heritage identification, inscription, and maintenance are produced in the context of contemporary concerns and localized cultural experiences. Today, the term ‘global’ implies worldwide, as in the flow of capital and communications. Heritage cannot be global because its origins are localized. World Heritage is Empire reimagined within a contemporary-globalized framework. The concept of World Heritage is contrived from Eurocentric, archaeological, architectural, and art-historical epistemologies with a focus on protecting monuments, buildings, and sites with quote “Outstanding Universal Value.” The systems that establish and maintain World Heritage Sites promote the commodification and fetishization of culture, as well as the past, to capitalize and commercialize the present and future, often at the expense and detriment of local communities. Accompanying the images in this body of work is a series of essays analyzing the historical narratives of the inscribed Sites and a new photography glossary titled “A Neo-lexicon of Photographic Vernacular.” This glossary is a reinterpretation of photographic, architectural, anthropological and critical-thinking terminology as a means to further problematize narratives of Empire and World Heritage.
Details
Presentation Type
Theme
The Arts in Social, Political, and Community Life
KEYWORDS
Photography, World Heritage, Cultural Heritage, Historical Narratives
