The Image of Whiteness
From the beginnings of colonial photography in the 19th century to contemporary images of ‘white saviours’ on social media, photography continues to play an essential role in the maintenance of white sovereignty. As various scholars have shown, the technology of the camera is not innocent either, nor are the images it produces.
Thus, the invention and perpetuation of the “white race” is not only a political, social and legal phenomenon, but also a complex visual one. In a time of revived fascism, we must seek to re-locate the image of whiteness in order to better understand its nonsensical construction. What does whiteness look like, and how might we begin to trace an anti-racist history of artistic resistance that works against this image?
The Image of Whiteness presents the visual history of whiteness – its falsehoods, its paradoxes and its part in manifesting power. It also presents works by photographic artists who subvert and critique this image.