Mark Sealy – författare

In this new collection, Sealy arguesthat Western photography and its institutions are at a critical juncture, havingbeen forced to reckon with the medium’s colonial history by Black and globalmajority photographers, artists and cultural theorists who interrogate archivesfrom the perspective of the Other. Sealy engages the work of underrepresented Blackphotographers and visual artists who, since the period of decolonisation, havechallenged the Othering nature of the colonial camera, from Ernest Cole documentingApartheid and US anti-blackness to Armet Francis capturing the spirit ofCaribbean style in postwar Britain. As a curator, Sealy pays special attentionto the role of key photography festivals and exhibitions in providing a spacefor the work of African and diasporic artists and photographers who were andare challenging the colonial nature of photography’s origins to come to thefore. Sealy also explores the radical potential of photographyonce reclaimed and transformed by Black photographers and artists. From thequeer interpretations of Yoruba culture by Rotimi Fani-Kayode to the hauntingabsence/presence in the self-portraits of Hélène Amouzou, Sealy traces how thecamera turned inwards has transformed photography into a medium for exploringBlack subjectivity, and in turn a practice of resistance. The book includes a16-page portfolio of images at its centre, featuring artists Zora J Murff,Sandra Brewster and others.

This book examines how Western photographic practice has been used as a tool for creating Eurocentric and violent visual regimes, and demands that we recognise and disrupt the ingrained racist ideologies that have tainted photography since its inception in 1839. Decolonising the Camera trains Mark Sealy’s sharp critical eye on the racial politics at work within photography, in the context of heated discussions around race and representation, the legacies of colonialism, and the importance of decolonising the university. Sealy analyses a series of images within and against the violent political reality of Western imperialism, and aims to extract new meanings and develop new ways of seeing that bring the Other into focus. The book demonstrates that if we do not recognise the historical and political conjunctures of racial politics at work within photography, and their effects on those that have been culturally erased, made invisible or less than human by such images, then we remain hemmed within established orthodoxies of colonial thought concerning the racialised body, the subaltern and the politics of human recognition. With detailed analyses of photographs – included in an insert – by Alice Seeley Harris, Joy Gregory, Rotimi Fani-Kayode and others, and spanning more than 100 years of photographic history, Decolonising the Camera contains vital visual and written material for readers interested in photography, race, human rights and the effects of colonial violence.

In Photography: Race, Rights & Representation Mark Sealy discusses the critical work photographic images do in culture. Through photography, the book engages with notions of history, alienation, migration, civil and human rights, community and representational politics.