Call for papers: International Symposium on the Bicentennial of Photography (2027)

On the initiative of the Ministry of Culture, from September 2026 to September 2027, the bicentennial of photography will be celebrated, commemorating the date of the first and oldest photographic image taken by Nicéphore Niépce.

In 1989, the 150th anniversary of photography was marked by artistic questions and the medium’s future as an art form, through major exhibitions such as L’Invention d’un regard (The Invention of a View) at the Musée d’Orsay and L’Invention d’un art (The Invention of an Art) at the Centre Georges Pompidou, which marked the entry of photography into art museums and the culmination of a powerful heritage movement, which was also evident in the exhibition 1839. La photographie révélée (1839. Photography Revealed), organized at the National Archives.

The ways of writing the history of photography have changed. Thirty-seven years after 1989, one avenue for reflection is the way in which photography weaves together shared history and individual stories, the way in which it marks our daily experience of the world (our memories, our interiors, our imagination, our representations) and the way in which it manages to elicit narratives, because it is perhaps one of the most widely shared ways of producing images.

The international symposium “Before Our Eyes: Two Centuries of Photographic Archives” aims to explore this dimension, taking note of the transformations in research on the history of photography and the history or anthropology of photographs.

• Reflect on the vocabulary and words used to describe photographs of loved ones: vernacular, amateur, private, family, domestic, average, ordinary, personal, etc.
• Study the production and circulation of photographic collections (processes of creation, transmission, institutionalization, loss, destruction, or even absence); what these collections produce in terms of uses and memories, how they constrain those who receive them; but also the future of ordinary images (digitization, description, dissemination, museography, loss, and disappearance).
• Reflect on family photographic archives, photographic archives of exile and migration, and of work.
• Study the upheavals in the uses of photographic archives around the world during the colonial and postcolonial periods.
• Rethink the history of heritage preservation by considering archives as present or missing memory. Give particular importance to subjects that are invisible in the image of queer LGBT archives.
• What photographic archives produce in us and how they guide our thinking and our work. What methodologies arise from studying these collections, how do we trace the trajectories of archives? How do contemporary artists (20th-21st centuries) produce works from archival collections, creating new ways of looking at them?
• The “missing archives.” Paying particular attention to archives that are currently threatened or have already disappeared in geopolitical contexts across five continents (armed conflicts, deliberate/political destruction, lack of resources and means of conservation, environmental conditions).
• Reflect on the ethics and uses of photographic archives; their dissemination via publications or the web; and the various ways in which they can be reappropriated. Digital archiving and the advent of AI: what photographic archives for the present and for the future?

Languages: French and English

Proposals

Proposals from researchers (junior or senior) and artists from all countries are welcome. Two types of proposals will be accepted:

– Individual proposals for 20-minute presentations

– Proposals for round tables with suggestions for a theme and guests (2 to 3)

Expected format of proposals

300-word proposal (1 page) including the title of the presentation, an abstract, and an image, accompanied by a half-page bio-bibliography.

Schedule

Deadline for submitting proposals: April 15, 2026

Committee response: June 2026

Link to the online call for proposals: https://invisu.cnrs.fr/project/sous-nos-yeux-deux-siecles-darchives-photographiques/

Email address for submitting proposals: bicentenairephotographie@inha.fr

Before our eyes. Two centuries of photographic archives. International symposium organized by the Ministry of Culture as part of the Bicentennial of Photography.

Dates: March 24, 25, and 26, 2027

Location: Mucem, Marseille (France)

Co-organizers and partners: Mucem, InVisu, INHA, Université Paris 1– HiCSA, IUF