This special double issue on Borders and Boundaries draws on papers presented at the third international photographies journal conference held at UTSA, the University of Texas San Antonio, School of Art, Texas, USA, in September 2022. We follow the path of our previous two successful journal conferences (Critical Issues in London in 2017 and Photography in Asia, Singapore, in 2020) by inviting participants to submit papers for conference and the journal special issue. As previously, the aim has been to bring together a variety of thinkers and photographers to discuss the conference thematic from a variety of local and international contexts relevant to photographies today. We made a public call for papers inviting contributions to address the theme of ‘borders and boundaries’ through our original aims:
photographies seeks to construct a new agenda for theorising photography as a heterogeneous medium in ever more dynamic and changing relations to all aspects of contemporary culture.
photographies aims to further develop the theory and practice of photography, considering new frameworks for thinking and addressing questions arising from the present context of technological, economic, political and cultural change.
The introduction that follows this editorial elaborates on the event and the papers that ensued from the open call submission for papers.
We were delighted to be able to co-host the event with Erina Duganne, Professor of Art History and Texas State University and Advisory board member of photographies journal, and Libby Rowe, Professor and School Director, Head of Photography, Art and Art History at UTSA. We are deeply grateful for all the wonderful work, support and hospitality of our hosts in San Antonio, Texas.
We are also delighted to announce that Julia Peck will be joining us as co-editor of the journal from 2024. Julia has been an Advisory Board member of the journal for several years but has been involved in the journal long before this. In 2010, she co-edited a special issue of the journal on Archive and Memory, which remains a popular issue some 14 years later. Julia’s research interests include landscape and ecologies, also documentary photography and emerging new technologies are an important element of her research interests. She both writes and makes photographs and moving image work. She has been published widely in Next Level, Dandelion, Source, Visual Studies, History of Photography, Photography & Culture and Journal of Australian Studies.