The Woman Who Walks Through Photographs, Sharon Sliwinski
Dec 2017
The Woman Who Walks Through Photographs, Sharon Sliwinski
Sharon Sliwinski
This paper explores Michal Heiman's creative strategy to imaginatively enter the space of asylum. Her recent project, RETURN: ASYLUM (THE DRESS, 1855-2018), offers a new way to extend solidarity to people who have been subjugated by the institution. She actively enlists the public's help in developing further strategies for connecting with those individuals who have been bereft of legal rights to property, family, or public hearing. This article explores Heiman's crucial political intervention, which blends creative visual practice with object relations theory.
The Face Of Our Wartime, Sharon Sliwinski
Dec 2014
The Face Of Our Wartime, Sharon Sliwinski
Sharon Sliwinski
This paper considers a turn toward portraiture amongst contemporary photojournalists who have covered the War on Terror. A series of wartime faces is examined in order to consider the way prolonged conflict flattens our visual landscape.
Inventing Human Dignity, Sharon Sliwinski
Dec 2014
Inventing Human Dignity, Sharon Sliwinski
Sharon Sliwinski
Are human beings endowed with an inviolable dignity? Or is dignity something that is lost and won? One of the most significant assertions made in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is the statement that every individual possesses an inalienable dignity simply by virtue of belonging to the “human family.” This chapter aims to make a modest contribution to the emerging scholarship on the history and meaning of dignity as it pertains to universal human rights. My goal is to trace how this particular quality came to be affixed to the human …
The Storyteller: Observations On Murtada Bulbul’S ‘Swineherders’, Sharon Sliwinski
Dec 2012
The Storyteller: Observations On Murtada Bulbul’S ‘Swineherders’, Sharon Sliwinski
Sharon Sliwinski
This review engages Murtada Bulbul's series of photographs of Bangladeshi swineherders (published in this issue), casting the photographer's treatment as that of a storyteller. On one hand, this treatment suggests the importance of visual-cultural forms for the very legibility of human rights. On the other hand, Bulbul's pictures can teach us something about what it means to live a "bare life," that is, to live at the edges of the human community.
Human Rights In Camera, Sharon Sliwinski
Dec 2010
Human Rights In Camera, Sharon Sliwinski
Sharon Sliwinski
From the fundamental rights proclaimed in the American and French declarations of independence to the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Hannah Arendt’s furious critiques, the definition of what it means to be human has been hotly debated. But the history of human rights—and their abuses—is also a richly illustrated one. Following this picture trail, Human Rights In Camera takes an innovative approach by examining the visual images that have accompanied human rights struggles and the passionate responses people have had to them.
Camera War, Again, Sharon Sliwinski
Dec 2005
Camera War, Again, Sharon Sliwinski
Sharon Sliwinski
The war in Iraq has undoubtedly produced some of the most dreadful entries in the history of camera war.
The Childhood Of Human Rights: The Kodak On The Congo, Sharon Sliwinski
Dec 2005
The Childhood Of Human Rights: The Kodak On The Congo, Sharon Sliwinski
Sharon Sliwinski
This article examines the Congo reform movement's use of atrocity photographs in their human rights campaign (c. 1904–13) against Belgian King Leopold, colonial ruler of the Congo Free State. This material analysis shows that human rights are conceived by spectators who, with the aid of the photographic apparatus, are compelled to judge that crimes against humanity are occurring to others. The article also tracks how this judgement has been haunted by the potent wish to undo the suffering witnessed.
