To See, to Keep, to Know: Photography and Intergenerational Knowledge Production

Building upon collaborative photography projects led by scholars, artists, educators, activists, cultural institutions, and community-run organizations (including the Family Camera Network, the LGBTQ+ Intergenerational Dialogue Project, Black Archives, Nuevayorkinos, and the Making of an Archive), this panel examines the central role of photography in (re)writing histories and supporting intergenerational knowledge production. These new approaches, which move beyond using photographs solely for interviewing purposes, emphasize the social practices of photography as well as the movement of photographs across time and space. Drawing attention to the intergenerational component of these photographic projects, we pose the following questions: How do these modes of engaging with photographs bring attention to meaningful continuities and ruptures across generations? How can photography and intergenerational dialogues empower communities, validate identities and kinship formations, and disrupt dominant narratives? How do such intergenerational projects complicate facile separations of photographic genres and practices, such as fine art photography, vernacular photography, documentary photography, and ethnographic photography?

While the family photograph album has served as one of the most ubiquitous occasions for intergenerational dialogue, we are also interested in papers on alternative and collective archives assembled by artists and through crowdsourced social media platforms and the digital humanities. This panel seeks proposals from a variety of creative practitioners, researchers, and museum professionals, including panelists working in collaboration with each other. We strongly encourage topics on Black, Latinx, Indigenous, and LGBTQ+ subjects and how intergenerational engagements with photography contribute to decolonial and antiracist initiatives.