Decolonising the Camera: Photography in Racial Time - Mark Sealy

This book examines how Western photographic practice has been used as a tool for creating Eurocentric and violent visual regimes, and demands that we recognise and disrupt the ingrained racist ideologies that have tainted photography since its inception in 1839.

Decolonising the Camera trains Mark Sealy’s sharp critical eye on the racial politics at work within photography, in the context of heated discussions around race and representation, the legacies of colonialism, and the importance of decolonising the university. Sealy analyses a series of images within and against the violent political reality of Western imperialism, and aims to extract new meanings and develop new ways of seeing that bring the Other into focus.

The book demonstrates that if we do not recognise the historical and political conjunctures of racial politics at work within photography, and their effects on those that have been culturally erased, made invisible or less than human by such images, then we remain hemmed within established orthodoxies of colonial thought concerning the racialised body, the subaltern and the politics of human recognition.

With detailed analyses of photographs – included in an insert – by Alice Seeley Harris, Joy Gregory, Rotimi Fani-Kayode and others, and spanning more than 100 years of photographic history, Decolonising the Camera contains vital visual and written material for readers interested in photography, race, human rights and the effects of colonial violence.

Mark Sealy is interested in the relationship between photography and social change, identity politics, race, and human rights. He has been director of Autograph ABP (London) since 1991 and in his role as director has produced artist publications, curated exhibitions, and commissioned photographers and filmmakers worldwide. He has written for many international photography publications, including Foam Magazine, Aperture, and Next Level. In 2002, Sealy and professor Stuart Hall coauthored the critically acclaimed Different, which focuses on photography and identity politics.

His many projects include the co-curation of The Unfinished Conversation / Encoding Decoding and Human Rights Human Wrongs, curated for Ryerson Image Centre, Toronto and the Photographers Gallery, and  Gordon Parks: A Choice of Weapons for Side Gallery Newcastle.

Mark has served as a photography jury member for World Press Photo, the Carmignac Gestion photojournalism award and the Sony World Photo award. He chaired the Kraszna-Krausz Foundation Book award in 2015 and the  Hassleblad Photography Award in 2017.

Sealy has guest-lectured at institutions including the Royal College of Art and Tate Britain, Fabrica, and devised a global photography MA studies programme for Sotheby’s Institute of Art. He has been awarded the Hood Medal by the Royal Photographic Society and a Most Excellent Order of the British Empire award for services to photography (2013). He gained his PhD from Durham University England, focusing on photography and cultural violence.