Decolonizing Images

Virtual Book Launch: Decolonizing Images: A New History of Photographic Cultures in Egypt by Ronnie Close

May 14, 2024

The Photographic Gallery hosted the virtual book launch of Associate Professor Ronnie Close’s latest book Decolonizing Images: A New History of Photographic Cultures in Egypt, published by Manchester University Press (2024), with the participation of Cairo-based critic and curator Farida Youssef and writer, curator and academic Professor Ben Burbridge (University of Sussex).

This launch was a sequel to a series of webinars entitled Decolonize the Lens, which The Photographic Gallery hosted in 2021, in which it invited photographic experts and scholars to look at the local history of photography in Egypt and Northeast Africa to consider ways to rethink the dominant narratives in the history of photography.

Speakers

Ronnie Close

Ronnie Close is an Irish writer based in Cairo. His visual research projects examine the role of politics in image aesthetics. He has written two books: Cairo’s Ultras: Resistance and Revolution in Egypt’s Football Culture (AUC Press, 2019), which looks at the cultural practices of local football fans and the politics of representation, and Decolonizing Images: A New History of Photographic Cultures in Egypt (Manchester University Press, 2024), which delinks the visual heritage of Egypt from the dominant narratives in the history of photography. He has published widely on critical theory in Visual Studies, Philosophy of Photography, Mada Masr, Membrana, Africa is a Country and others.

Farida Youssef

Farida Youssef is a critic and curator based in Cairo. She is interested in the value of spatial theory for artistic inquiries. As a writer, she has published academic chapters, reviews and exhibition catalogues on twentieth and contemporary visual culture. She holds a master’s degree in European philosophy from University College London.

Ben Burbridge

Ben Burbridge is a writer, curator and academic. His publications include Revelations: Experiments in Photography (MACK 2015), Photography Reframed: New Directions in Contemporary Photographic Culture (I.B. Tauris 2018) and Photography After Capitalism (Goldsmiths 2020). He teaches modern and contemporary art history at the University of Sussex, UK.