Folkwang Photo Talk with Michelle Henning

24.4.2025

We are very much looking forward to April 24, 2025 when we will welcome Michelle Henning, Professor for Photography in Media at the University of Liverpool for our next Folkwang Photo Talk. Michelle will speak about »The Significance of Photographic Technologies: Infra-Red and Far-Right Imperialism.«

This talk demonstrates how a specific photographic technology came to stand for British Imperial power in the 1930s, suggesting parallels with contemporary far-right image making (for example in the contemporary circulation of AI images online). I show how infra-red photography — a new technology in the 1930s, became harnessed to right-wing claims regarding British imperial superiority, and understood as representing the pinnacle of both technical and aesthetic achievements. The technology helped to align both scientific and aesthetic modernity with British imperial power at a moment when the Empire was being challenged by liberation movements and anti-colonial uprisings.

The talk will be held online (via zoom) and will start at 6 pm CEST (Essen) which is 5 pm GMT (Liverpool) or 12 pm EDT (New York).

Please email us for the zoom link. Everybody is welcome!