In episode seven, Zara and Yasmine talk to Ali and Zain Haider about the legacy of Edward Said and look at modern day travel photography through the lens of Orientalism. They discuss the ways in which ‘othering’ still takes place, and how well regarded photographers, intuitions and publications are still promoting that narrative. They also examine questions of identity and consent; and ‘self-Orientalisation’ among poc photographers and communities.
Zirrar presents an analysis of modern travel photography using the work of Edward Said and Orientalism. He demonstrates how Orientalist tropes portraying 'natives' are still being used in travel photography today, including in the work of well-known photographers, and endorsed by publications such as National Geographic.
Zara is joined by Sacred Footsteps' writers and photographers Ali and Omar Rais, and Chirag Wakaskar, a photographer based in Mumbai, India and creator of the @everydaymumbai project on Instagram.
“When we speak of ‘shooting’ with a camera, we are acknowledging the kinship of photography and violence.” Teju Cole This visual essay...
“The camera is a kind of passport that annihilates moral boundaries and social inhibitions, freeing the photographer from any responsibility...
Take a look at this photograph. Three women sit on a rug on the floor. All of them wear ‘traditional’...
Zirrar on the problem with Orientalist art Snake charmers, carpet vendors, devoted worshippers and veiled women; what is it about Orientalist...
Zara Choudhary on living exhibitions or human zoos, that were commonplace in major cities in Europe and North America in...
Famed explorer Sir Richard Francis Burton gained his highly regarded reputation through his many voyages across the eastern world, or...
In 1879, when presenting a paper on female suffrage, Louisa Bigg told her audience that, “An Eastern traveler, struck with...
“The cannon compels the body, the school bewitches the soul” — Cheikh Hamidou Kane, Ambiguous Adventure The most violent spectacles...
Wilfrid Scawen Blunt commented in his book, The Future of Islam, that Islam needs to “work out for itself a Reformation,”...