Open Rooms #8: Photography and Racialisation with Open Eye Gallery
Sara Jaspan, Exhibitions Editor
Photography is not innocent. The medium has played a significant role in maintaining a visual culture and hierarchy with its roots in colonialism, one in which racial ‘whiteness’ is synonymous with ‘normal’ and desirable. This can be seen and understood in the various practices and technologies of photography.
For Open Eye Gallery‘s eighth Open Rooms online event, Yasmin Gunaratnam, Ali Eisa and Daniel C. Blight seek to examine the role photography plays in the ongoing racialisation of people, in the UK and worldwide. The conversation will revolve around an image submitted by each participant, with an accompanying question.
Yasmin Gunaratnam asks “How heavy is whiteness?”. Ali Eisa asks “In making images, how do we make ourselves?”. Daniel C. Blight asks, “How do white people see?”. Using these three questions as entry points, they seek to uncover the visual architecture of whiteness, and offer ways to unpick and subvert the racialising production and circulation of images.
Open Rooms is an online programme of free live-streamed talks and workshops and hosts an ongoing public discussions on Discord.
