Photo Credit

AFONG STUDIO
established Hong Kong 1859–c.1941
attributed to LAI Afong, photographer,
Hong Kong c.1839–1890

Western man in Hong Kong in Chinese costume c.1885
albumen silver cabinet card photograph 14.6 x 9.5 cm, in original lacquer frame

National Gallery of Austalia, Canberra 2006.747

Convened by:
Dr Luke Gartlan, University of St Andrews, E: lg321@st-andrews.ac.uk Ms Gael Newton, National Gallery of Australia, E: gaelnewton@nga.gov.au

A symposium presented in collaboration between the Humanities Research Centre, RSHA, Australian National University and the National Gallery of Australia.

Venue: National Gallery of Australia, Parkes ACT

Website

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Within months of the public announcement of the daguerreotype process in 1839, its earliest practitioners had already established studios in the major commercial centres of South East- and East Asia. From the beginning, the studio photographic likeness was the pre-eminent genre of the successful enterprise. Photographs of local subjects in the studio—whether as foreign tourist mementos, anthropological or ethnographic documents, statements of indigenous political authority, or for domestic use and circulation—were produced, distributed and collected in their millions. In the wake of postcolonial critiques of the camera’s objectivity, such colonial-era photographs have often been interpreted as symptomatic of colonialist attitudes and fantasies toward their subjects. However, local communities and indigenous elites quickly adopted the technology for their own domestic purposes and nationalist agendas. Enterprising indigenous studio photographers such as Francis Chit in Bangkok, Afong in Hong Kong, and Uchida Kuichi in Tokyo, also catered to appreciative foreign clients and markets, reversing the initial relations between photographers and customers in the studio.

While the studio often served as a space of cross-cultural encounters between photographers and sitters, its practices and procedures were often inflected by local cultural preferences and traditions. This conference aims to explore the photographic portrait in the first hundred years of the medium in Asia. It intends to promote inter-regional comparative analyses between scholars working in diverse cultural and national contexts. The conference will not only analyse photographic representations of Asian peoples for the global market, but also consider the domestic adoptions and adaptions of the visual technology for local forms of self-representation and cultural practice. It will also consider the studio photograph as collaboration between photographer and sitter, and the diverse performed identities invoked in photographic sittings. Are there distinctive practices and conventions that informed and characterised regional photographic portrayals of sitters? In terms of both production and reception, how did the personal associations between photographers and sitters inform the resultant photographic portraits? How did the increasing traffic of people and representations across national borders, both within and beyond the Asia-Pacific region, inform and alter studio practices and photographic imagery? How were such practices of studio portraiture informed by traditional depictions of the human subject?  In what ways was studio photography transformed through its interaction with other visual media in specific contexts?

Facing Asia refers to the significance of the camera in the historical depiction of the peoples in Asia, whether defined in such historical terms as types, costumes, portraits, icons or mugshots. We wish to invoke debate on the photographic likeness—its producers, subjects, viewers, and collectors—which will highlight and enhance our understanding of the histories and legacies of such visual materials across national borders. Facing Asia also intends to provoke debate on the theoretical approaches and contemporary claims to such archives in a field of growing academic, curatorial and collecting interest.

Possible topics include:

* Early Asian photographers and their studio practices
* The exhibition and reception of photographic portfolios
* Collected portfolios of Asian peoples
* Photographic portraiture and identity
* Cross-cultural photographic exchanges within the Asia-Pacific region
* Asian photographic archives and their histories