Niyet #10: Unlearning The Imperial Origins of Photography: Rights, Restitution and Return
Ariella Aïsha Azoulay (Moderator: Merve Ünsal)

 

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Orta Format dedicates its Issue #31 to the phenomenon of intention (Niyet in Turkish) and questions how experts from different disciplines approach this notion in their professional fields. The issue extends over three months and comprises 12 talks from a variety of fields, ranging from visual arts to philosophy, from political science to psychoanalysis, through which we attempt to interpret the phenomenon that decisively influences our production and judgments.

 

The next guest of Niyet is Ariella Aïsha Azoulay, a theorist of photography and visual culture.

 

"We were trained not to think about photography in terms of extraction and accumulation, but rather, in the way we are trained to think about democracy or freedom, with its dissemination considered an unquestionable good. Photography is a technology not because of its modern machinery and equipment, but rather because it controls and regulates people's movement, gestures, and actions, while also forcing them to act as its operators."