PICTURE – Photography and the rural european environnement during the long 19th century

PICTURE is an international research seminar dedicated to rural photography in Europe during the long nineteenth century. The project was initiated through the Circle U. Seed Funding Programme.
Join us—in person or online—from 13 to 15 November for discussions inspired by the accompanying exhibition. Together, we’ll explore how photography was used not only to document transformations in rural landscapes, both natural and built, but also as a social and cultural tool to imagine and shape these environments.

At a time when the rural environment was being radically transformed by the Second Industrial Revolution, photography captured a crucial tension between a romanticized, pastoral past and a mechanized, rationalized future. This project’s approach allows us to examine the topic across different scales, from the micro-level of individual photographs to the macro-level of national identity and global circulations of agricultural, artistic, or scientific information, ideas, and power. By studying how rural environments were visually represented in photographs, as well as the ideologies, networks, and material culture structuring these photographic processes, we can better understand the historical construction of rural space and place. Furthermore, by drawing from case studies from all over Europe, including Great Britain, Romania, Poland, and Germany, we hope to investigate the role of rural representations in the construction of regional, national, or European identity and explore the diverse meanings of rurality across the continent.

Programme

13th of November, Campus of the Grands Moulins, in the library
–  5pm : Guided tour of installations
– 6:30pm :  Light refreshments to be served

14th of November, online or onsite at the Saint Germain Campus, ESPACES AMBROISE PARE
– 9:30am : Rural Photography, Tourism, and the Making the Picturesque Lake District
– 10:15am: Above and Beyond: The cloud as drifting conceptual and visual motif in photographic theory
– 11h10am : Framing Nature: Serbian Landscape Photography at International Exhibitions

– 1:30pm : TEXTURE (Flax and River Lys Museum): Rural Photography in Europe During the Long Nineteenth Century
– 2:15pm : Digging through the Hinterland(s) of the Front(s) during the Great War
– 3:10pm : : Rediscovering Vitold Rola Piekarski’s Photographic Fieldtrips in Rural Romania

15th of November, Online or onsite at the campus of Grands moulins, Hall aux Farines, room 315B
– 9:30am : Nature in German Photographic Publications (1871-1933)
– 10h15am : Intoxicating Landscapes: Visual and Narrative Representation of Polish Peasant Drinking Culture in the Second Half of the 19 Century
– 11:10am : Conclusion

Registrations

Register before the 12th of November!

To know more

→ European alliance Circle U.

Contact of Circle U. at UPCité :

→ circleu.iro@u-paris.fr

Contact of the organiser Lauren Pankin, Echelles UMR 8264 

→ lauren.pankin@etu.u-paris.fr