Call for Papers: PN Virtual Symposium “Photography Beyond the Vault”
PHOTOGRAPHY BEYOND THE VAULT
PN VIRTUAL SYMPOSIUM, DECEMBER 4–6, 2025
https://www.photographynetwork.net/symposium-2025-call-for-papers
Photography Network’s fifth annual symposium will consider the subject of photography collections and the institutions that shape them. When Rosalind Krauss published her 1982 essay “Photography’s Discursive Spaces,” questioning the categorical shifts of historic photographs from archives to art museums, the effects of the 1970s “Photo Boom” were still unfolding. Today, a half century after the founding of influential galleries, museums, and academic programs focused on photography, the medium is fully ensconced in the global art market and public collections through countless prints, negatives, books, magazines, and many other materials. At the same time, this history centers on the United States and western Europe, and within these geopolitical regions, scholars and critics have long noted how particular sets of photographs are privileged for preservation and study over others. Collecting photographs became a way to value and prioritize certain stories over others.
Drawing inspiration from the Nepal Picture Library, a digital archive of over 120,000 photographs that strives to create a broad and inclusive visual archive of Nepali social and cultural history, this symposium seeks to present a current appraisal of changes to photography collections around the globe. Our keynote speaker will be NayanTara Gurung Kakshapati, Co-Founder and Director of photo.circle, a platform for photography in Nepal including the Nepal Picture Library, and the organizer of Photo Kathmandu—an international photography festival that serves as an alternative platform for conversations between visual storytellers and local audiences.
For our 2025 virtual symposium, we invite proposals that critically examine how the institutional frameworks of photographic history and practice—often shaped by Western models of scholarship, archiving, and pedagogy—are unevenly applied across global contexts, and that explore how alternative or locally grounded approaches can challenge, expand, or reconfigure dominant narratives in the field. How can photography collections of the future improve and how can we better serve these collections?
Proposals might consider:
- Alternative collecting, preservation, or display practices
- Issues of access to and ownership of photographs
- Legacies of colonialism and histories of resistance in photography collections
- Absence, loss, and destruction of photographs
- Digitization, databases, and AI as tools
- Artists in the archives and archives as art
- Photography’s “discursive spaces” today
Submission Information:
Photography Network invites proposals across disciplines and a broad range of subjects that reflect the geographic and thematic diversity of the field. Practitioners and scholars at any stage of their careers are welcome to submit their research. We also welcome international scholars but note that the symposium will be in English.
The symposium organizers encourage a variety of presentational styles. In addition to proposals for individual, 15-minute papers, we also seek alternative-format presentations (e.g., workshops and roundtables). Applicants may submit up to 2 proposals, provided that one is in an alternative format. Sessions will be organized around accepted submissions, rather than prescribed themes.
To be considered for a panel or alternative-format presentation, please prepare:
(1) a 250-word abstract with a clear indication of format, and
(2) a two-page resume or CV.
All files should be named “[LAST NAME]–CV” or “[LAST NAME]–ABSTRACT.”
Email completed materials by August 15 to photographynetworksymposium@gmail.com. Notifications of accepted proposals will be emailed by August 31. The symposium will be held online December 4–6. 2025.
Note: Accepted presenters must be Photography Network members in good standing at the time of the symposium. We have a sliding scale membership: $20 (Student/Unaffiliated), $40 (Affiliated), or $100 (Senior). We also have free need-based memberships. Please visit Photography Network’s membership page for more information on how to join and email any questions to photographynetworkboard@gmail.com.