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Books by Sarah Bassnett
In 1911, when Arthur Goss was hired as Toronto’s first official photographer, the city was at a c... more In 1911, when Arthur Goss was hired as Toronto’s first official photographer, the city was at a critical juncture. Industry expansion and population growth produced pressing concerns about housing shortages, sanitation, and the health and welfare of citizens. Dispelling popular misconceptions, Picturing Toronto demonstrates that Goss and other photographers did not simply document the changing conditions of urban life - their photography contributed to the development of modern Toronto and shaped its inhabitants.
Drawing on archival sources from the early twentieth century, Sarah Bassnett investigates how a range of groups, including the municipal government, social reformers, and the press, used photography to reconfigure the urban environment and constitute liberal subjects. Through a series of case studies, including the construction of the Bloor Viaduct, civic beautification plans, urban reform in “the Ward,” immigration and citizenship, and Goss’s portrait photography, Bassnett exposes how photographs were at the heart of debates over what the city should look like, how it should operate, and under what conditions it was appropriate for people to live.
This lavishly illustrated book is the first study to treat images as vital elements that shaped Toronto’s social and political history. Interdisciplinary in its approach, Picturing Toronto displays the complex entanglements between photography and urban modernity.
Papers by Sarah Bassnett
Contact Zones: Photography, Migration, and Cultural Encounters in the United States , 2021
Panorama: Journal of the Association of Historians of American Art , 2020
In 1989, Magnum photographer Susan Meiselas (b. 1948) photographed irregular border crossings in ... more In 1989, Magnum photographer Susan Meiselas (b. 1948) photographed irregular border crossings in southern California. At the time, it was relatively easy for undocumented migrants from Central America and Mexico to cross between ports of entry, even as there was growing pressure on American officials to address border security. 1 One photograph in Meiselas's Crossings series depicts a border patrol officer apprehending a migrant off the interstate near Oceanside (fig. 1). Two torsos fill the center of the image. The officer grasps the man's clothing, propelling him toward the nearby vehicle. With heads cut off by the frame and backs turned, the uniform and the force of the interaction conveys the unequal power dynamic. This series of black-and-white photographs tells a story of the struggle between people attempting to cross into the United States and the border agents trying to stop them. It follows Meiselas's work in Central America during the 1970s and 1980s and connects events in that region to pressure at the border.
Photography and Culture , 2023
This article examines a series of photographs by Griselda San Martin, a Spanish journalist and do... more This article examines a series of photographs by Griselda San Martin, a Spanish journalist and documentary photographer based in New York City and Mexico City. The series focuses on the experiences of people at Friendship Park, a bi-national park located in the border region of San Diego, United States, and Tijuana, Mexico. Working in Tijuana, San Martin engaged with families as they attempted to connect with loved ones across the border in San Diego. Many of the people she met at Friendship Park had become separated from family members after living as undocumented migrants in the US and then being deported. This article looks at how San Martin's approach to the representation of migration differs from mainstream news coverage, which often represent Mexicans in clich ed terms, either as threatening or as victims. I draw on political theorist Deva Woodly's work to consider San Martin's approach as grounded in a politics of care. I show that in San Martin's work, care is a means of reconfiguring image making as an ethical practice in which the ambivalence and challenges of diasporic experience and family separation are recognized, and I explore her series as an important recasting of the photography of Mexican migration.
Oxford Art Journal , 2023
photographies , 2020
Life was a popular news magazine that used photography to influence the way millions of Americans... more Life was a popular news magazine that used photography to influence the way millions of Americans perceived geopolitical events during the Cold War. Combining information and entertainment in new ways, it reassured its predominantly white, middle-class readership of their privileged place within a volatile world. This article considers how the ideology of modernization informed the magazine’s coverage of Africa. Prevalent from the late 1940s to the mid 1960s, modernization theory proposed a framework for understanding the transition from traditional to modern, democratic societies. It was one of the main ways the United States constructed its identity as a world power during the collapse of imperialism. Focusing on the early 1950s, including a 1953 special issue, the article shows how the magazine’s coverage of Africa conveyed different aspects of the ideology of modernization. It builds on previous scholarship on Life by looking beyond the internal politics of the US to analyse how the magazine used its distinctive visual language to reinforce racist stereotypes. By contrasting life in Africa with technological and commercial innovation in the US, Life gave the impression that American-style modernization was superior to imperial rule because of its focus on economic development.
The Cultural Work of Photography in Canada, 2011
Photography and Culture, 2009
This article concentrates on two contemporary photographers, Greg Staats and Arnaud Maggs, whose ... more This article concentrates on two contemporary photographers, Greg Staats and Arnaud Maggs, whose work generates an affective response by engaging in an archival practice. Drawing on Jill Bennett's analysis of affect in contemporary art, including her discussion of the way work can be transactive, Bassnett considers how the work of these artists addresses viewers, and how different archival practices unsettle conventional viewing relationships. In the case of Staats, affect is activated by his engagement with archival sources. Staats draws on family history and Iroquoian traditions to address individual and cultural loss in a process that translates what Bennett calls "sense memory" into "common memory" through art discourse. With Maggs, it is the artist's archiving of cultural ephemera that engenders an affective response. The objects Maggs photographs have been taken out of their cultural and historical contexts and relocated within the discourse of art. Through an analysis of the way selected works produce affect, Bassnett argues that these approaches to photography as an archival practice offer ways of negotiating individual and cultural loss.
History of Photography, 2008
... This article examines the circulation of a series of photographs taken by Frances Benjamin Jo... more ... This article examines the circulation of a series of photographs taken by Frances Benjamin Johnston at the Hampton Normal and Agricultural ... College Museum of Art in 2000 in which the Hampton photographs were paired with work by contemporary artist, Carrie Mae Weems. ...
History of Photography, 2004
Book Reviews by Sarah Bassnett
History of Photography, 2006
University of Toronto Quarterly, 2009
In 1911, when Arthur Goss was hired as Toronto’s first official photographer, the city was at a c... more In 1911, when Arthur Goss was hired as Toronto’s first official photographer, the city was at a critical juncture. Industry expansion and population growth produced pressing concerns about housing shortages, sanitation, and the health and welfare of citizens. Dispelling popular misconceptions, Picturing Toronto demonstrates that Goss and other photographers did not simply document the changing conditions of urban life - their photography contributed to the development of modern Toronto and shaped its inhabitants.
Drawing on archival sources from the early twentieth century, Sarah Bassnett investigates how a range of groups, including the municipal government, social reformers, and the press, used photography to reconfigure the urban environment and constitute liberal subjects. Through a series of case studies, including the construction of the Bloor Viaduct, civic beautification plans, urban reform in “the Ward,” immigration and citizenship, and Goss’s portrait photography, Bassnett exposes how photographs were at the heart of debates over what the city should look like, how it should operate, and under what conditions it was appropriate for people to live.
This lavishly illustrated book is the first study to treat images as vital elements that shaped Toronto’s social and political history. Interdisciplinary in its approach, Picturing Toronto displays the complex entanglements between photography and urban modernity.
Contact Zones: Photography, Migration, and Cultural Encounters in the United States , 2021
Panorama: Journal of the Association of Historians of American Art , 2020
In 1989, Magnum photographer Susan Meiselas (b. 1948) photographed irregular border crossings in ... more In 1989, Magnum photographer Susan Meiselas (b. 1948) photographed irregular border crossings in southern California. At the time, it was relatively easy for undocumented migrants from Central America and Mexico to cross between ports of entry, even as there was growing pressure on American officials to address border security. 1 One photograph in Meiselas's Crossings series depicts a border patrol officer apprehending a migrant off the interstate near Oceanside (fig. 1). Two torsos fill the center of the image. The officer grasps the man's clothing, propelling him toward the nearby vehicle. With heads cut off by the frame and backs turned, the uniform and the force of the interaction conveys the unequal power dynamic. This series of black-and-white photographs tells a story of the struggle between people attempting to cross into the United States and the border agents trying to stop them. It follows Meiselas's work in Central America during the 1970s and 1980s and connects events in that region to pressure at the border.
Photography and Culture , 2023
This article examines a series of photographs by Griselda San Martin, a Spanish journalist and do... more This article examines a series of photographs by Griselda San Martin, a Spanish journalist and documentary photographer based in New York City and Mexico City. The series focuses on the experiences of people at Friendship Park, a bi-national park located in the border region of San Diego, United States, and Tijuana, Mexico. Working in Tijuana, San Martin engaged with families as they attempted to connect with loved ones across the border in San Diego. Many of the people she met at Friendship Park had become separated from family members after living as undocumented migrants in the US and then being deported. This article looks at how San Martin's approach to the representation of migration differs from mainstream news coverage, which often represent Mexicans in clich ed terms, either as threatening or as victims. I draw on political theorist Deva Woodly's work to consider San Martin's approach as grounded in a politics of care. I show that in San Martin's work, care is a means of reconfiguring image making as an ethical practice in which the ambivalence and challenges of diasporic experience and family separation are recognized, and I explore her series as an important recasting of the photography of Mexican migration.
Oxford Art Journal , 2023
photographies , 2020
Life was a popular news magazine that used photography to influence the way millions of Americans... more Life was a popular news magazine that used photography to influence the way millions of Americans perceived geopolitical events during the Cold War. Combining information and entertainment in new ways, it reassured its predominantly white, middle-class readership of their privileged place within a volatile world. This article considers how the ideology of modernization informed the magazine’s coverage of Africa. Prevalent from the late 1940s to the mid 1960s, modernization theory proposed a framework for understanding the transition from traditional to modern, democratic societies. It was one of the main ways the United States constructed its identity as a world power during the collapse of imperialism. Focusing on the early 1950s, including a 1953 special issue, the article shows how the magazine’s coverage of Africa conveyed different aspects of the ideology of modernization. It builds on previous scholarship on Life by looking beyond the internal politics of the US to analyse how the magazine used its distinctive visual language to reinforce racist stereotypes. By contrasting life in Africa with technological and commercial innovation in the US, Life gave the impression that American-style modernization was superior to imperial rule because of its focus on economic development.
The Cultural Work of Photography in Canada, 2011
Photography and Culture, 2009
This article concentrates on two contemporary photographers, Greg Staats and Arnaud Maggs, whose ... more This article concentrates on two contemporary photographers, Greg Staats and Arnaud Maggs, whose work generates an affective response by engaging in an archival practice. Drawing on Jill Bennett's analysis of affect in contemporary art, including her discussion of the way work can be transactive, Bassnett considers how the work of these artists addresses viewers, and how different archival practices unsettle conventional viewing relationships. In the case of Staats, affect is activated by his engagement with archival sources. Staats draws on family history and Iroquoian traditions to address individual and cultural loss in a process that translates what Bennett calls "sense memory" into "common memory" through art discourse. With Maggs, it is the artist's archiving of cultural ephemera that engenders an affective response. The objects Maggs photographs have been taken out of their cultural and historical contexts and relocated within the discourse of art. Through an analysis of the way selected works produce affect, Bassnett argues that these approaches to photography as an archival practice offer ways of negotiating individual and cultural loss.
History of Photography, 2008
... This article examines the circulation of a series of photographs taken by Frances Benjamin Jo... more ... This article examines the circulation of a series of photographs taken by Frances Benjamin Johnston at the Hampton Normal and Agricultural ... College Museum of Art in 2000 in which the Hampton photographs were paired with work by contemporary artist, Carrie Mae Weems. ...
History of Photography, 2004
History of Photography, 2006
University of Toronto Quarterly, 2009