The visual commons: counter-power in photography from slavery to Occupy Wall Street
The visual commons: counter-power in photography from slavery to Occupy Wall Street
This chapter explores the formation and dissemination of what the author has called the ‘visual commons’ in photography. The visual commons can be explored through photography because photography has become the medium of the commons and it is today perhaps the first universal medium. Several key moments in this history are explored, beginning with the first use of the term ‘photography’ in the Americas by Hercule Florence in Brazil in 1832. Florence overwrote the existing visual commons with photography’s scene of representation. Soon after British Chartists were photographed on Kennington Common, London, in 1848, the first such image of mass political action emerged, reclaiming the visual commons. The chapter then concentrates on the visual commons after slavery in North America, culminating in the 1968 encampment known as Resurrection City in Washington D.C. as photographed by occupier Jill Freedman. A final section notes how this legacy was important to the Occupy Wall Street movement.
Keywords: Photography, Commons, Visuality, Slavery, Chartism, Occupy Wall Street
Manchester Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.
