Archive Photography

In times where millions of images are being made every day, how can a photographer create an original body of work? With this idea in mind, this class will explore a multi-directional approach to archive based photography and how to create a project around it. Gripped by Jacques Derrida’s “archive fever,” photography has remapped its field of practice around the capture, reimagining, and explanation of the archival object. This class explores many types of archives–family albums, government records, flea market collectibles, historical photographs, precious objects, and paper documents. We will use a series of lens based technologies, starting from the flatbed scanner and radiating outward. We will explore archive concerns including consent, ownership, privacy, circulation, respect, and political impact. For midterm and final projects, students will explore the many display forms available for the photography derived archival project. The final result of this class, students can both project their bodies of work towards becoming a fanzine, a book or an exhibition that will help to resurface the memories of these photographs with a fresh eye.