Generation Z.
This exhibited photographic series explores if the critical (un)learning of photographic practices can challenge the skewed power relationship of European and African visual cultures. The two exhibitions are accompanied by the publication Generation Z: Visual Self-Governance through Photography. In Lam, C. and Raphael, J. (Ed.) Personas and Places Waterhill Publishing: New York (book chapter).
- Submitting institution
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Anglia Ruskin University Higher Education Corporation
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 919
- Type
- M - Exhibition
- Venue(s)
- Henri Tayali Gallery, National Visual Arts Council, Lusaka, Zambia; Art at ARB – Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH), Cambridge University.
- Open access status
- -
- Month of first exhibition
- -
- Year of first exhibition
- 2017
- URL
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https://figshare.com/s/87bb7d30a121c5ce60e0
- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
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- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- The photographic series Generation Z explores if the critical (un)learning of photographic practices can challenge the skewed power relationship of European and African visual cultures. Hacker reimagines Lusaka, the Zambian capital, through documentary photography by engaging with the local modern understanding of the self in a low-income country. Hacker’s research highlighted that Zambia’s visual identity outside the country, and to some extent within the country itself, is often based on a stereotypical colonial/post-colonial African narrative, and does not reflect the current lived experience.
Generation Z re-imagined Lusaka through alternative images by rigorously documenting modernity and gentrification and its
impact on Zambian society. The methodology developed organically throughout the making process, centers indigenous lived experiences and knowledge and acts as a space of engagement, referred to as an ‘un-methodology’. Over three prolonged visits Hacker developed methods of making and editing to investigate her own position within the complex photographic history of documenting the African continent.
The significance of the research is evidenced in the resulting exhibition at the Henry Tayali Gallery in Lusaka and the Centre for African Studies in Cambridge, which facilitated conversations on the representation of Africa. The book chapter Generation Z - Visual Self-Governance through Photography discusses the use of outdated reference material from the colonial libraries (1988, Mudimbe), which still influences the field of documentary photography. The preceding paper Fostering Visual Self-Governance in Zambia won the Best Paper Award at the Bridging Gaps Conference in Perth, Australia in 2018.
As a result of the exhibition and associated workshops and round tables a group of the Zambian photographers created a informal working group with Hacker and the National Zambian Visual Arts Council to sustainably develop their photographic practice and visual language in a local context. The photographers collaborated on Stories of Kalingalinga (2019) and the
PhotoCovidZambia (2020) projects.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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