Memory of Fire: Images of War and the War of Images

Photoworks book launch in association with Culture+Conflict

Amnesty International The Human Rights Action Centre, 17-25 New Inn Yard, United Kingdom, EC2A 3EA

25 June 2013, 6.30pm

FREE event, but booking is essential

Join Julian Stallabrass for a discussion of the highly anticipated Photoworks publication, Memory of Fire: Images of War and the War of Images with contributors: independent photojournalist, Rita Leistner and artists, Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin.

Edited by Stallabrass, Memory of Fire is a compelling visual, theoretical and historical resource about the photography of war, and how images are used as instruments of war. The book comprises essays and interviews by prominent theorists, artists and photographers and covers the urgent issues of the depiction of war, the use of images of war by the media, various forms of censorship, the military as a PR and image-producing machine, the circulation of unofficial images and the impact of the digital mediascape.

Drawing on content gathered for the 2008 Brighton Photo Biennial (curated by Stallabrass), and supplemented with commissioned texts and interviews, the book covers a range of twentieth-century war photography from the Russian Revolution to current conflicts, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many types of images are illustrated and analysed, including large-scale museum photography and artists’ installations, photojournalism, official army propaganda and amateur images made by soldiers and civilians.

Rita Leistner will reflect on the circumstances surrounding her time embedded in Iraq, where she worked with a US Army unit that was later implicated in the murder of civilians. Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin will discuss the scope of their practice, from early documentary work in South Africa to their unique series of non-figurative, action-photographs, The Day Nobody Died (2008), created during an embed with the British military in Afghanistan.

This event is convened by Photoworks and Culture+Conflict, UK, with generous support from Amnesty International, the Arts and Humanities Research Council, and the British Council.

A pay bar will run before and after the talk all proceeds to Amnesty International.

£2 will be donated to Amnesty International for every book purchased at the event.