The Missionary, the Diviner and the Chief: Distributed Personhood and the Photographic Archive of the Mariannhill Mission (original) (raw)
Related papers
Tribing and Untribing the Archive: Identity and the Material Record in Southern KwaZulu-Natal in the Late Independent and Colonial Periods, 2016
Figure 1 (opposite). Brother Aegidius staging the negotiation of a photographic scene, c.1900-5. Congregation of Mariannhill Missionaries Archives Figure 2 (opposite). Brother Aegidius co ll ecting artefacts, c.1904. Linden Museum, Stuttgart Auxiliary Modes of Collecting: Circulation and Curation of Photographs from the Mariannhill Mission in I<waZulu-Natal, 1880s to 1914 Christoph Rippe Missionary photographs, their subjects and their objects Between the 1880s and 1914, the photographic studio of the Catholic Monastery and Mission Mariannhill near Pinetown in what is now KwaZulu-Natal circulated a variety of photographic images targeting religious, as well as ethnographically oriented, audiences. I The photographs were taken mainly in the vicinity of Mariannhill's outstations in Natal and Griqualand East, with a few from Rhodesia and German East Africa. While some people were framed as exotic, 'traditional' and 'ethnographic', others were presented as evidence of the success of the 'civilising mission' in the form of dressed and productive African people in a European style. Some white South Africans viewed Mariannhill Monastery as an equally exotic 'medieval monastic settlement' and, from its foundation, it was a well-known tourist destination, attracting local journalists and overseas visitors, including German aristocracy and personalities such as Mohandas Gandhi, Mark Twain and Rider Haggard.' As the essay in this volume by Andre Croucamp on the publications of the Natal Government Railways shows, this led to a continuous output of photographs into local media) A local and international clientele thus made demands on the photographic production at Mariannhill, but also provided pre-existing examples. 4
The Use of Photography as a Mode of Social and Historical Investigation
Critique d’art
American Readers at Home by Ludovic Balland, Against Photography by Akram Zaatari and Qu'est-ce qui est différent ? by Wolfgang Tillmans all have in common the fact they consider photography as a decisive element in the construction of histories, while also integrating it into the narrative chain text is also part of. Akram Zaatari and Wolfgang Tillmans both include pre-existing photographs in their work, thus questioning the medium per se. This is a far cry from the unique, context-less photograph admired as if on an altar, following the probable desire of Roger Théron, the ex-editor-in-chief of Paris Match, a tabloid now controlled by Matra, a weapon manufacturer. Théron recommended that the magazine's photographers should go study the old masters at the Louvre. All three of the artists discussed here have in common the urgent need to take action in the present. Ludovic Balland and Wolfgang Tillmans lead their investigation in Western countries, where, in the past two or three years, authoritarian, nationalistic and discriminating political movements have rocketed. In a completely different context (Lebanon and its neighbouring countries), Akram Zaatari questions current affairs through old photographs. All three use photography as an instrument in the field of politics. The Use of Photography as a Mode of Social and Historical Investigation Critique d'art, 51 | Automne/hiver Recently, the exhibition Zerrissene Gesellschaft: Ereignisse von langer Dauer [Torn Society: Long-Term Events], curated by Anne König and Jan Wenzel 3 , had a starting point The Use of Photography as a Mode of Social and Historical Investigation Critique d'art, 51 | Automne/hiver
"Histrionic Zulus": Photographic Heterotopias at the Catholic Mission Mariannhill in Natal
Safundi. The Journal of South African and American Studies, 2014
In this article, I argue that certain photographs of Christian converts at the Catholic Mission station Mariannhill in Natal underwent a process of theatricalization, in the decade just prior to World War I. Foucault identified theater stages as one of the possible places that may be called heterotopias, and also alluded to mission stations in this regard. I explicate what those spaces may have in common with the performative aspects to the production of photographs and the evocation of faith towards benefactor audiences in Europe.
Rundbrief Fotografie. Analoge und digitale Bildmedien in Archiven und Sammlungen, 2017
The Social Life of Photographs. Review of “Photo-Objects: On the Photo-Archives in the Humanities and Sciences”, International Conference, Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut, 15-17 February 2017, in: Rundbrief Fotografie. Analoge und digitale Bildmedien in Archiven und Sammlungen, vol 24 (2017), no. 3 [N.F. 95], S. 43-51.
The Conditions of Photographic Culture
B(X)K RL\ ILWS this same lack ol representation of an\ tonliict or resistance that marks the Paoloz/i exhibition upstairs It IS rare these da\s to find an exhibition whieh is prepared to cross c>\tr professional and specialist boundaries 'I o this extent Lost Magu kingdoms is a positive lnitiatne and ont v\e shall hopefulK set attain .Someone less rooted in estabhshment \aluLs and more able to appreciate the pohtical issues at stake, could havt produced \erv different results Such an artist v\<juld be more likeK to represent the complexities ol colonialism past and present rather than simpK reproduce its processes \nnie t oombes
A Hundred Years of Photography. A Critical Rereading of an Innovative Contribution
Lucia Moholy between Photography and Life, 2012
The book A Hundred Years of Photography 1839-1939 sums up Lucia Moholy's whole critical experience of the history of photography and theory of the image. The brief text was published by Penguin as a Pelican Special shortly before World War II to mark the one hundredth anniversary of Daguerre's invention. This rare text, one of the first histories of photography by a woman, together with the fundamental 1936 essay La Photographie en France au dixneuvième siècle by Gisèle Freund , deals with the subject by articulating different levels of interpretation: the symbolic, decisive for understanding the first hundred years of photography, from its invention to its impetuous break into modernity, and the technicalscientific, which emphasizes the importance of the whole process of creating images down to the discovery of the reality hidden behind the appearances of the visible world. The purpose of the book, as a popular, scholarly pocket-sized edition, was direct and practical: to make known the technical, historical, social and economic essentials of photography. The author explained that the text was not written "to replace any of those previously published, but because it was felt that at the age of a hundred, which, by now, photography has reached, it may be worth while to give a thought not only to the achievements of photography as such, but to the part it has played by mutual give and take throughout these hundred years in the life of man and society." 1 The distinctive quality of the book lies in the author's vision. Like Gisèle Freund, she focuses on the social context of the medium, backed up by a broad knowledge of art history. Her vision also emerges in many details of the treatment that bring out eccentric and original views. In twenty-eight short chapters she presents objectives and areas of development. In the opening chapters the reader is struck by the breadth of her treatment, the inclusion of large historical and scientific areas, for the most part overlooked by photography historians of the time. At the beginning of the second chapter, Lucia says explicitly, "Every art has its technique," 2 and immediately adds: "This does not imply that painting and photography have been completely dependent on each other. It does not mean that painting and photography are two sides of the same thing. They are, on the contrary, independent, each of them evolving on the basis of their own laws. But they are subjected to similar forces from the world outside, and also to their mutual interaction." 3 Beginning in 1839, between beauty and truth, appearance and reality, creation and contemplation, a new current was created, a dialectic that drove the philosophies of art to question themselves on the relations between artistic experience and the new medium. Lucia Moholy accepts the challenge by trying to show how the practice of art and that of photography, apparently so different, evoke each other and generate a history that is entwined with the history of mankind. Evoking the major Western philosophies, from Aristotle and Paracelsus to contemporary theories of art, Lucia explains how every great artwork entails an essential relationship 41 Il libro Cento anni di fotografia. 1839-1939 sintetizza l'intera esperienza critica di Lucia Moholy nel campo della storia della fotografia e della teoria dell'immagine. Il breve testo, che trova posto nella serie "Pellican Special" della casa editrice Penguin, viene pubblicato poco prima dell'inizio della Seconda guerra mondiale, per commemorare il centesimo anniversario dell'invenzione di Daguerre. Questo raro testo, una delle prime storie della fotografia vergate da una penna femminile -insieme al fondamentale saggio del 1936 La Photographie en France au dix-neuvième siècle di Gisèle Freund (1908-2000) -affronta l'argomento articolandolo tramite piani di lettura differenti: quello simbolico, determinante per comprendere i primi cento anni della fotografia, dall'invenzione al suo impetuoso irrompere nella modernità; quello tecnico-scientifico, nel quale viene sottolineata l'importanza dell'intero processo di creazione di immagini fino alla scoperta delle realtà nascoste dietro le apparenze del mondo visibile. Lo scopo del libro, in quanto tascabile scientifico-popolare, è diretto e pratico: far conoscere la fotografia nei suoi essenziali aspetti tecnici, storici, sociali ed economici. L'autrice stessa spiega come il testo non sia stato scritto "per sostituire i libri precedentemente pubblicati ma perché ci si è accorti, dopo cento anni di storia della fotografia, che valeva la pena di dedicare un pensiero non solo ai traguardi raggiunti dalla fotografia, ma al ruolo che essa ha giocato nel reciproco dare e avere, attraverso questi cento anni nella vita dell'uomo e della società" 1 . La particolarità dell'opera consiste nella visione dell'autrice, che si concentra, così come accade in Gisèle Freund, sul contesto sociale del mezzo, sostenuta da un'ampia conoscenza storico-artistica, così come in numerosi dettagli della trattazione vengono rivelati punti di vista eccentrici e originali. In ventotto brevi capitoli vengono indicati traguardi e settori di sviluppo. Nei primi capitoli colpisce l'ampiezza della trattazione, l'inclusione dei grandi ambiti storicoscientifici, per la maggior parte tralasciati degli storici della fotografia dell'epoca. All'inizio del secondo capitolo, Lucia mette in chiaro: "Ogni arte ha la sua tecnica" 2 . E subito aggiunge: "Questo non implica che pittura e fotografia siano state completamente interdipendenti. Non significa che pittura e fotografia siano due facce della stessa medaglia. Esse sono, al contrario, indipendenti e mutano sulla base delle loro stesse regole. Sono però soggette a forze simili provenienti dal mondo esterno, e anche alle loro vicendevoli interazioni" 3 . Dal 1839 tra bellezza e verità, parvenza e realtà, creazione e contemplazione si è creata una nuova tensione, una dialettica che ha spinto le filosofie dell'arte a interrogarsi sul rapporto dell'esperienza artistica con il nuovo medium. Lucia Moholy raccoglie la sfida cercando di mostrare come la pratica artistica e quella fotografica, in apparenza così eterogenee, si richiamino l'un l'altra dando vita a una storia che si intreccia con la storia dell'uomo. Rievocando le principali filosofie occidentali, da Aristotele e Paracelso alle teorie artistiche contemporanee, Lucia spiega come ogni grande opera d'arte implichi un rapporto essenziale con il mondo e con la verità, e si contraddistingua per un contenuto filosofico nascosto che si tratta di intercettare e rivelare. 40 A Hundred Years of Photography.
Practising photography: an archive, a study, some photographs and a researcher
Journal of Historical Geography, 2000
This paper begins from the assumption that the meanings of a photograph are established through its uses. This point has been well made by a number of historical geographers in recent arguments for the importance of photography as a record of historicallyspecific ways of seeing the world. This paper, however, extends that argument, and focuses on the relationships between the photograph and the historical geographer. Drawing on my own experiences of working in the Print Room of the Victoria and Albert Museum looking at photographs taken by Lady Hawarden in the mid-nineteenth century, I discuss the effects of that archive both on them and on myself as a researcher. I argue that that archive is a powerful space which to a certain degree allies the visual and spatial resources of the photographs and the research practice of the historical geographer to its own discipline; but I also argue that its discipline can be disrupted by its own contradictory discourses and by other relationships between researcher and the photographs. In conclusion, I ask for more consideration to be given to contemporary research practice in relation to historical photographs. Historical geographers cannot themselves claim to be merely the descriptive recorders of history and geography if they wish to deny this status to photographs.
In the mid 1950s, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG) sponsored two substantial photographic exhibitions in Britain, on South Africa and the British West Indies, promoting its mission activities and forming the centrepieces for fundraising campaigns. This article takes the latter exhibition - 'Window on the West Indies' - as an opportunity to examine the Society's evolving approach to the medium, and its photographic archival legacy. Departing from an earlier practice of relying primarily on missionaries to supply photographs from the field, and unlike the somewhat serendipitous circumstances of the South Africa exhibition, 'Window on the West Indies' resulted from a professional commission. In addition to raising issues of ownership and control of photographic production and the photographic image, the commission signalled an increasingly ambitious use of the medium to promote the Society's Christian missionary worldview. Yet, I suggest, this very photographic ambition opens the door to alternative readings that escape the limits of the Society's intentions. Beyond its role as mission propaganda, including some highly controlled uses of the photographs within its publicity material, the project can be located in the context of a post-war convergence of international humanist and humanitarian narratives expressed in visual form, and a belief in the capacity of photography as a medium for mutual understanding. Although a Christian future, secured in the act of donation, underpinned the narrative the Society sought to promote through its selective deployment of the photographs, taking a wider view of the collection it is evident that the photographs also speak to a more open, uncertain and imaginative relation to the world depicted. This latter not only draws attention to the specific presence of the photographer but also provides an opening to enable the collection to be refigured for future audiences.
Photography in the Study of Religion
This paper was first written for the Community Religions Project at the University of Leeds, England, in March 1977, starting off a series of internal working papers in that program. That was nearly forty years ago and, in the meantime, with the advent of digital photography, there have been many changes. Nevertheless, apart from the archival interest, the methodological argument advanced here remains largely relevant today. Various valuable functions of photography in the study of religions are explored. The argument also builds up a strong emphasis on the importance of “characterization” in the study of religions, steering between theology and sociology. It therefore positions the study of religions as a discipline with its own requirements. The paper is now published on the Marburg University Library Digital Publications Server, to which reference should be made in the case of quotation.