Nomadic Camera

Multiperspective approach towards photography as a nomadic device and photographs as mobile objects of circulation.

From its introduction in the early nineteenth century and through ongoing technical developments, photography has been a mobile medium closely tied to equipment, social conditions and cultural framings. The volume Nomadic Camera investigates the technical, medial and aesthetic relationship between photography and displacement in historical and contemporary perspectives. The contributing authors adopt the term ‘nomadic’ – signifying a transitory form of existence – to explore photography beyond static concepts of being and national boundaries. Viewing photography as a formative part of this history of mobility and migration, the book explores the interplay between the concepts of the ‘nomadic’ and the ‘camera’, offering new perspectives on photography as a medium on the move. The interdisciplinary contributions approach this topic from various angles. They examine photographic tools and technologies; investigate the role of bodies, agents, and performative acts in photographic practices; explore how photography constructs and conveys narratives of movement; and address issues of image circulation, archiving, and memory.

Introduction. Nomadic Camera: Photography, Displacement and Dis:connectivities
Burcu Dogramaci, Winfried Gerling, Jens Jäger and Birgit Mersmann

Section 1. Techniques and Technologies

Chapter 1. Fugitive Heat: Notes on Richard Mosse’s Thermal Images
Winfried Gerling

Chapter 2. Reflections on Photography and ‘Flight’ : Encounters with Human and More-than-Human Lives in Transit
Noemi Quagliati

Chapter 3. The Nomadic Camera as a Given Camera : Concepts in Documentaries on Flight and Migration
Florian Krautkrämer

Chapter 4. “A still image with a little bit of life to it” : Towards a Migratory Aesthetic of Smartphone Photography
Svea Braeunert

Chapter 5. In Transition: Nomadic Cameras, Displaced Photographers and Migratory Images
Burcu Dogramaci

Section 2. Body, Agents and Performativity

Chapter 6. Albert Frisch and the Representation of the Body in Visual Narratives of Early Amazonian Photography
Sabrina Moura

Chapter 7. “I am not migrating to the USA” : Performing Migrancy in Paulo Nazareth’s Notícias de América
Lara Bourdin

Chapter 8. Acting for Those We Left Behind : The Performance and Exchange of Family Photographs by Guest Workers in Denmark in the 1970s
Mette Sandbye

Chapter 9. A Conversation with Fatimah M. Dadzie on Her Documentary Fati’s Choice (Le choix de Fati) (Ghana, South Africa, 2021)
Winfried Gerling and Jens Jäger

Chapter 10. The Nomadic Camera and Digital Visual Journalism : Ethical Considerations in the Making
Evelyn Runge

Section 3. Media Narrations and Narratives

Chapter 11. The Camera in the Service of Humanism and the Legacies of Neorealism
Fabienne Liptay

Chapter 12. Weaponised Environments: From the Migrant Image to the Media of Causes
T. J. Demos

Chapter 13. Unfolding Postmigrant Stories : Narratives of Resettlement and Homemaking in Tammy Law’s Photobook Permission to Belong
Birgit Mersmann

Chapter 14. Nomadic Photography: Jeff Moore’s Lockdown London Homeless Project
Christina Tente

Chapter 15. The Registry of Itinerant Architectures
Ainslie Murray

Section 4. Circulation, Archive and Memory

Chapter 16. Captured Reality: Oba Ovonramwen and the Benin Bronzes
Stefanie Michels

Chapter 17. “Nowhere in Africa”? German-Jewish Experiences of Migration and Exile in Kenya: A Family Photo Album
Anna Sophia Messner

Chapter 18. The METROMOD Archive as a “Living Archive” : Researching Exile Photography in New York in the 1930s and 1940s
Helene Roth

Chapter 19. The Israeli Government Press Office Photography Department : A Case Study on Photographic Action in the Middle East
Annette Vowinckel

Chapter 20. “Salam azizam, chetori?”: Nomadic Family Photographs in the Iranian Diaspora
Cathrine Bublatzky

Chapter 21. Moving Archives and Liquid Time : The Work of Photographs in an Age of Decomposition
Elizabeth Edwards

Biographies of the Authors

Burcu Dogramaci

Burcu Dogramaci is Professor of Art History and Director of the Käte Hamburger Research Centre global dis:connect at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.

Winfried Gerling

Winfried Gerling is Professor of Concepts and Aesthetics of New Media in the Department of Design at the University of Applied Sciences in Potsdam where he works in the European Media Studies Program jointly run with the University of Potsdam.

Jens Jäger

Jens Jäger is Professor of Modern History at the University of Cologne.

Birgit Mersmann

Birgit Mersmann is Professor of Contemporary Art and Digital Image Cultures at the University of Bonn. Her transcultural and transmedial research covers global contemporary art, media art from photography to AI art, and the history and theory of museums.

Noemi Quagliati

Florian Krautkrämer

Svea Bräunert

Sabrina Moura

Lara Bourdin

Mette Sandbye

Mette Sandbye is professor of photography studies at the Department of Arts and Cultural Studies at the University of Copenhagen. She has published numerous books and articles on contemporary photograpjhy, both art and everyday, as part of visual culture.

Evelyn Runge

Fabienne Liptay

T.J. Demos

Christina Tente

Ainslie Murray

Stefanie Michels

Anna Messner

Helene Roth

Helene Roth is research assistant at Institute of Art History at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, from which she obtained her PhD in 2024.

Annette Vowinckel

Cathrine Bublatzky

Cathrine Bublatzky is a photographer and social and cultural anthropologist. As Senior Lecturer at University of Tübingen, she teaches on visual, digital and media cultures, migration, and ethnographic methods.

Elizabeth Edwards

Fatimah M. Dadzie