I’m thrilled to announce my talk, “Worldwide Photo Clubism: Building a Transnational Community During the Cold War” as part of the Photography Network Speaker Series, on October 4, 2024.
The talk will be delivered via Zoom. Find the registration link and more details about the event here: https://www.photographynetwork.net/news/worldwide-photo-clubism
A page from the catalog of the 22nd Singapore International Salon of Photography 1971 (Singapore: The Photographic Society of Singapore, 1971).
Please note that the talk is open to all Photography Network (PN) members. If you’re professionally interested in any aspect of photography scholarship, please consider PN membership—the organization generously offers multiple ways to join, including free memberships. Find out more about this wonderful organization and check out membership options on the PN website: https://www.photographynetwork.net/
The abstract of my talk:
Worldwide Photo Clubism: Building a Transnational Community During the Cold War
Alise Tifentale
Friday, October 4 at 9am PST • 12 Noon EST • 5pm BST
This talk examines photography’s community-building potential in a divided world. In July 1963, Taiwan-based photographer Chin-San Long (Lang Jingshan, 1892–1995) opened his solo exhibition in São Paulo, Brazil, organized by the city’s most well-known photo club Foto Cine Clube Bandeirante. In November 1965, the jury of 29th International Salon of Photographic Art in Buenos Aires, Argentina, awarded its main prize to Gunārs Binde (b. 1933) from the Riga Photo Club in Latvia, then one of the fifteen republics of the Soviet Union.
Both events had a long-term impact on the photographers’ careers and subsequent local and regional developments.
But beyond that, both events hint at the scope of the invisible photo club network—a global system of self-curated, self-financed, and self-edited publications, exhibitions, and competitions that connected photographers across ideological divides and political borders during the Cold War era.
Long before the Internet, photographers had established an independent and inclusive (using today’s terminology) network for non-profit image circulation and cultural exchange. The self-governed photo club network created a transnational community, welcoming participants from what was then labeled as the “first,” “second,” and “third” worlds. At the time, belonging to such a community was particularly empowering for photographers across Latin America, the post-Stalinist Soviet Union, and the rapidly decolonizing regions of Asia.
In dialogue with recent publications such as Cold War Camera (2023) and Collaboration. A Potential History of Photography (2023) and museum presentations such as “Fotoclubismo: Brazilian Modernist Photography, 1946–1964” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (2021), this talk highlights the legacy of photo club network that changed the landscape and power dynamics in the field of photography on a truly global scale.
Find the registration link and more details about the event here: https://www.photographynetwork.net/news/worldwide-photo-clubism
I hope you’ll be able to join the conversation!