Watching, Waiting: The Photographic Representation of Empty Places - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 9462703752 ISBN 13: 9789462703759

Publisher: Leuven University Press, 2023

Synopsis

First study on empty places in photography and the Covid-19 pandemic.
In the aftermath of Covid-19, the subject of ‘empty places’ has gained renewed topicality and resonance. Watching, Waiting presents a collection of essays that brings emptiness into interdisciplinary focus as an object of study that extends beyond the present. The contributors approach the specific interrelationships of photography and place through emptiness by considering historical and contemporary material in equal measure. Drawing on architecture, anthropology, sociology, and public health, among other fields, they provide insights into geographically and temporally diverse production models of empty places and their corresponding complex and sensitive global and local relations, while also tackling the ethics of behaviour and protests that unfold within them. The book's chapters, both photographic and scholarly essays, cover areas that range widely both thematically and geographically, spanning static film footage of Nicosia's Buffer Zone, protest photographs in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement in Bristol, staged images from the University of Zagreb's ethnological archives, historic landscape and architectural photography, aerial shots of Covid-19 mass graves in Brazil, photos of artificially built field hospitals and quarantine rooms during the pandemic, and images of empty airports at night. Through still and moving images, Watching, Waiting examines the photographic aestheticisation of emptiness, existing stereotypes of ‘empty places’, and transformations of human experiences.

Contributors: Ruth Baumeister (Aarhus School of Architecture), Isabelle Catucci da Silva (Federal University of Paraná), Stella Fatović-Ferenčić (Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts), Martin Kuhar (Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts), Catlin Langford (Centre for Contemporary Photography), Jessie Martin (University of West London), Stuart Moore (University of the West of England), Luca Nostri (Independent Artist Photographer), Kayla Parker (University of Plymouth), Bec Rengel (University of the West of England), Tihana Rubić (University of Zagreb), Klaudija Sabo (University of Klagenfurt), Anna Schober (University of Klagenfurt), Elke Katharina Wittich (Leibniz University Hannover)

Ebook available in Open Access.
This publication is GPRC-labeled (Guaranteed Peer-Reviewed Content).

About this title

About the Authors

Sandra Križić Roban is an art historian, theorist, and curator working as a senior research adviser in tenure at the Institute of Art History, Zagreb.

Ana Šverko is an architect and architectural historian working as a senior research adviser at the Institute of Art History - Cvito Fisković Centre, Split.

From the Back Cover

In the aftermath of Covid-19, the subject of ‘empty places’ has gained renewed topicality and resonance. Watching, Waiting presents a collection of essays that brings emptiness into interdisciplinary focus as an object of study that extends beyond the present. The contributors approach the specific interrelationships of photography and place through emptiness by considering historical and contemporary material in equal measure. Drawing on architecture, anthropology, sociology, and public health, among other fields, they provide insights into geographically and temporally diverse production models of empty places and their corresponding complex and sensitive global and local relations, while also tackling the ethics of behaviour and protests that unfold within them. The book's chapters, both photographic and scholarly essays, cover areas that range widely both thematically and geographically, spanning static film footage of Nicosia's Buffer Zone, protest photographs in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement in Bristol, staged images from the University of Zagreb's ethnological archives, historic landscape and architectural photography, aerial shots of Covid-19 mass graves in Brazil, photos of artificially built field hospitals and quarantine rooms during the pandemic, and images of empty airports at night. Through still and moving images, Watching, Waiting examines the photographic aestheticisation of emptiness, existing stereotypes of ‘empty places’, and transformations of human experiences.

Sandra Križić Roban is an art historian, theorist, and curator working as a senior research adviser in tenure at the Institute of Art History, Zagreb.

Ana Šverko is an architect and architectural historian working as a senior research adviser at the Institute of Art History - Cvito Fisković Centre, Split.

Edition details

• Publisher: Leuven University Press
• Publication date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 9462703752
• ISBN 13: 9789462703759
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 312
• Editor: Križić Roban Sandra, Šverko Ana