The Ethics of Capturing: 28 May 2019
Laura Pannack
A Collaboration between The Photographers’ Gallery and the Centre for Philosophy and the Visual Arts at King’s College London
© Laura Pannack
Photography plays a powerful and pervasive role in contemporary society and raises a series of complex ethical questions for photographers, their subjects, curators, and audiences. For example, who or what should be captured, and by whom? When, if ever, should we refuse to photograph or be photographed? Which images should be circulated? When should we look, or look away?
In the lead up to TPG’s 50th anniversary in 2021,
is a series of events bringing together practitioners, curators, academics, and other stakeholders, to discuss the enduring ethical issues at the heart of photography. Looking back through a selection of pathbreaking exhibitions from the Gallery’s archive, we explore in depth the moral issues connected with the images at hand.This first event unpicks
The Ethics of… Capturing
, with reflection on TPG’s opening exhibition
Questions addressed, both relevant to then and now, include: Does a photographer have a distinct set of artistic, ethical, and professional obligations, different from those of (other) visual artists? Or are there people/objects/scenes that should not be captured or circulated?Speakers include
Paul Lowe
, photographer and Course Leader for MA Photojournalism and Documentary Photography at London College of Communication;
, British social documentary and portrait photographer;
Dawn M Wilson
, Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Hull; and chaired by
Sarah Fine
, Centre for Philosophy and the Visual Arts, King’s College London.
£8/£5 members & concessions.