The Politics of the Fixed Image

The Politics of the Fixed Image

What do images conceal from us and what do they show us? What can a photograph of a landscape or of a face reveal about a political system? These questions draw together the two works screened in this session, which take photographic archive images and, examining them as though studying a crime scene, reveal the movements of the historic period shown in these stills: British colonial presence on the border between India and Afghanistan in the early 20th century and the mechanisms of political repression in the 48 years of Salazar’s dictatorship (1926-1974), in force both in Portugal and in the African colonies. [Video screening.]

Why Colonel Bunny Was Killed, Miranda Pennell, UK, 2010, 28 min.; 48, Susana de Sousa Dias, Portugal, 2009, 93 min.