Since its inception, the relationship between photography and time has forever been altered. Photography has been understood as the capture of an instant, the freezing of a single moment in time, a fragment of a present past. However, the connection between photography and time is far more complex than the plain concept of past, present and future. When thinking of images, we have come to realize that time can be considered through other qualities such as movement, narrative, metaphor, memory, repetition, processuality and performativity, to name a few possibilities. By understanding that time can be explored outside the physical chronological conventions that are determined by measure and reason, it is possible to enter a symbolic temporal dimension in which subjectivity arises. The subjective expectation and the experiencing of time therefore enable to reflect on the temporality of the unspeakable, or to perceive the instant time as an immeasurable present, as an untimely time.

​

Furthermore, the transformation of photography from the analogue to digital medium has introduced other layers of complexity concerning our relationship with time. The idea that photography holds a mortiferous power and relates to notions of immobility, fatality and death, suggested by authors such as Barthes or Sontag, has turned into the idea of motion, speed and excess. Considering the technical age we live in, the relationship between images and time is no longer possible to be analyzed through simple and stable definitions. For instance, theorist Zygmunt Bauman stressed that we live in liquid times, in which our existence is shaped through an endemic state of uncertainty.

​

In the second volume of Archivo Papers Journal — with the title “Shaping Time. Photography and the artistic construction of the contemporary” (2022), the guest editor is interested in exploring the contemporary relations between photography and time, through an interdisciplinary approach from those with a background in history and theory of photography, cultural and art history, anthropology, philosophy, curating and visual practice, or any other discipline that engages in the thinking of photography. The edition will welcome papers that deal with issues of the timely and untimely nature of photography in ways similar to those described above.

 

Focusing in contemporary artistic production, potential topics include but are not limited to the following: 

​

• Time, image and the post-photographic;

• Time, territory and landscape notions through photography;

• Time, environment and spatial exploration images;

• Time and transnational / comparative perspectives through photographic uses;

• Time, cultural memory and collective / national images;

• Time and colonial / post colonial representations through images;

• Time and historiography from photographic images;

• Time, data and technological image-making;

• Time and political uses of photography;

• Time and individual perceptions in times of uncertainty.

 

​

 SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS 

​

• All abstracts must be submitted and presented in English.

• Proposals should be sent in a single word document (.doc/.docx) and must include title, abstract and 5 keywords (200-300 words), short biography in third person (100 words), author information (name/ affiliation/ position / email / website).​

• Submissions should be sent to apjournal@archivoplatform.com

 

The evaluation of the proposals will follow a double-blinded peer-review process. 

​

 IMPORTANT DATES 

 

15 JUN 2021 - Call for papers announcement

31 AUG 2021 - Deadline for abstract submission

30 SEP 2021 - Notification of accepted papers

20 JAN 2022 - Deadline for final papers

 

For queries, please contact info@archivoplatform.com