Held in conjunction with the FotoFest Biennial 2022, this symposium brings together leading voices from art, music, theory, and writing for a series of conversations that examine key issues explored by the artists featured in the FotoFest Biennial central exhibition, If I Had a Hammer. The symposium is presented over the course of two days and features panel discussions and talks that address the ways in which photographs and visual media both reflect and inform social and political issues and movements.

Admission is free; registration is required and seating is limited.

This symposium is presented in partnership with the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

Session 1

Photographic Archives and the Power of Narrative Control

October 8 | 6–8PM

David Kelley and Delilah Montoya; Introduced and moderated by Ashlynn Davis Burns

This panel discussion will examine the ways photographic archives function as both a symbol and form of social and political power by establishing and preserving dominant historical and cultural narratives. The guests will discuss how their work addresses archival impulses such as the maintenance of imperial ideologies, the perpetuation of hegemonic thought, and production of authoritative forms of knowledge and social realities. They will offer examples of how artists utilize archives and archival materials to explore the complex narratives, disparate temporalities, and subjectivities that are often unaccounted for and omitted from historical repositories.

Session 2

Making Pictures out of Protest, Making Protest out of Pictures

October 9 | 10:15–11:30AM

Forensic Architecture and Yazan Khalili; Introduced and moderated by Gina M. Masullo

Making Pictures out of Protest, Making Protest out of Pictures is a panel discussion featuring members from interdisciplinary research agency Forensic Architecture, artist Yazan Khalili, and moderated by Gina M. Masullo. This discussion explores how social movements and protest inform the production and interpretation of images, and likewise, how the proliferation and expanded reach of images today inspire sociopolitical actions. Accessibility to wide-ranging technologies and fast-paced visual reproduction facilitate the creation of images that illuminate broad cultural and political perspectives. Informed by her research on the power of digital media to both connect and divide people, Gina M. Masullo will guide the panelists in conversation about socially informed image production and its influence on social reality, individual beliefs, and journalistic reportage.

Session 3

Ghostly Shutter: Pictorial personhood and (im)permanence

October 9 | 11:30AM–12:45PM

Ryan Patrick Krueger, Dionne Lee, and Liz Rodda; Introduced and moderated by Roberto Tejada

This panel discussion will address an irony of photography: that despite its default associations in regard to creating an index, archive, and objective trace, photography’s susceptibility to circulation, redistribution, and recontextualization demonstrates the fragility of temporality, subjecthood, and notions of permanence. Artists Dionne Lee, Ryan Patrick Krueger, Liz Rodda and writer Roberto Tejada will discuss how their work grapples with concepts of impermanence, relating their interests in disparate cultural narratives and political issues, ranging from bordering and land politics to queer and feminist histories.

Film Screening: TBA

October 9 / 1:30–2PM

Session 4

Closing Roundtable

October 9 | 2:15–4:30PM

Steven Evans, Max Fields, Nora N. Khan, Amy Sadao, Mark Sealy, and Jeanne Vaccaro; Introduced and moderated by Celina Lunsford

In this closing roundtable, If I Had a Hammer curators Steven Evans, Max Fields, and Amy Sadao will join Dr. Mark Sealy and curatorial advisers Nora N. Khan and Jeanne Vaccaro to reflect on the biennial exhibition and ideas elucidated in the preceding symposium sessions. Through this reflection, the panelists will revisit how systems and structures of contemporary image-production influence historical narratives, engage collective discourse, inspire visual forms of resistance, and impact future cultural imaginaries.