Ansel Adams’s Born Free and Equal (1944): The social and ethical context

Abstract

The project was launched in 2008 and is funded by the Dr. Carlo Fleischmann Foundation. “Geography of Photography” aims to study the photographic cultures of different countries and different continents. In the long-term this will allow the creation of a media-specific and historical comparison of cultural spaces, which goes beyond the national identity and which will contribute to the question, how photography functions between local culture and globalization. The lecture series attempts to connect the Centre for Studies in the Theory and History of Photography at the Institute of Art History at the University of Zurich nationally and internationally while offering a stimulating program for the students. Every fall semester, over the course of eight years, European and Non-European countries and cultural spaces will alternately be featured. The history of the evolution and technique of photography in these countries and cultural spaces, the collection and gallery history of photography, the relationship between documentary and art photography, the nationally and internationally working photographers in the specific countries are as much a topic as the question, who has attended to the theoretical evaluation of photography in these countries and cultural spaces. Special attention is additionally given to the following questions: Which role has photography played in the socially and politically paradicmatic situations like colonization and war? Of what significance was photography for the Humanities and the Natural Sciences of these countries? It is the long-term goal of the occasional paper series to create an ‘atlas of photography’, which will be published bilingually.