Zoom Out: The Making and Unmaking of the 'Orient' through Photography

The Middle East and North Africa—identified by 19th-century European travelers as "the Orient"—played essential roles in the development of photography, both as a new technology and as an art form. At the same time, photography played a central role in developing and maintaining Europe's distinctively Orientalist vision of the region.

This two-day symposium examines how the Middle East and North Africa were represented through photography by Europeans and non-Europeans who traveled or resided in the region during the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Scholarly presentations and moderated discussions explore the relationship between Orientalist photography and other artistic media; the impact of traveling photographers on tourism and commercial photography; the connection between resident photographers and the rise of official photography (local and nationalist); and the ways in which both local and foreign artists, as well as patrons and collectors, contributed to the making—and unmaking—of the Orient.

The symposium is a joint project of the Getty Research Institute and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Grant for Transforming the Humanities at UCLA.