Re-Collections: Images beyond the Archive

Abstract

In visual terms the ongoing war in Syria has been one of the most well-documented that the world has ever witnessed. Accordingly Syria has for long been established as a topos for global reflection and concern. Despite an excess of visual documentation of this war, the actual processes through which some images have come to capture, embody and produce what Syria was, is, and is to become still need further thought and engagement. The central claim of this Introduction is that Syria offers an exemplary case to reflect on the power of images and on how processes of archiving enable a grip, not merely on the past but also on the present and the future. At the same time we offer a reflection on various facets of Syrian engagement with collections and re-collections of images, and how these speak to a concerted attempt to keep the narrative of what has taken place in Syria open for posterity.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by The Independent Research Fund Denmark for the project Archiving the future: Re-collections of Syria in War and Peace (ref. 9062-00014B).

Notes on contributors

Andreas Bandak

Andreas Bandak is Associate Professor in the Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, and Director of the Center for Comparative Culture Studies, at the University of Copenhagen. Currently he is Principal Investigator for two research projects on Syria. His most recent book is Exemplary Life: Modeling Sainthood in Christian Syria (Toronto, 2022). E-mail: [email protected]

Christine Crone

Christine Crone holds a Ph.D. from the University of Copenhagen and is an Assistant Professor and part of a Postdoctoral on the collective research project "Archiving the Future: Recollections of Syria in War and Peace," at the Dept. of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies (UCPH). She is the author of Pan-Arab News TV Station al-Mayadeen: The New Regressive Leftist Media (Peter Lang, 2020).

Nina Grønlykke Mollerup

Nina GrØnlykke Mollerup is an Associate Professor in the Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen. She is a media anthropologist working with people who produce, archive, show and in other ways engage with images of violence. She is Principal Investigator of the Independent Research Fund Denmark Sapere Aude-funded project "Views of Violence: Images as Documentary, Evidentiary and Affective."