In a series of written exchanges, David Campany and Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa consider the options for photography in resisting the oppressive orthodoxies of racial capital, conservative history, and neoliberal visual culture. How does the essential indeterminacy of photography square with the need to work out alternative practices? How is visibility achieved beyond the consensual categories of the mass media and the commodification of art? What models are there for the making and reception of photographic books and exhibitions that might cultivate an active spectatorship beyond boutique consumerism? These urgent questions and more are discussed in a spirit of speculation and possibility, in the light of signal events that have shaped the recent past.

DISCOURSE is a series of small books in which a theorist, artist, or writer engages in a dialogue with a theme, an artwork, an idea, or another individual across an extended text. Explore the full series here.