March 6, 2026

Online

The second event in the 2026 By/For: Photography & Democracy virtual lecture series is coming up on Friday, March 6, at 1pm EST: “Studio Ilankai: A Tamil Photographic History of Sri Lankan Citizenship” with Vindhya Buthpitiya. Learn more and register here.

If you missed our first event, “To Show or Not to Show: Ethics, Censorship, and the Case of the Scourged Back” with Anne Strachan Cross & Matthew Fox-Amato, we invite you to view the recording here.

By/For: Photography & Democracy is a collaborative partnership between three photographic historians, Dr. Tom Allbeson, Dr. Colleen O’Reilly, and Helen Trompeteler. Our collective investigates photography’s assumed democratic credentials as an art form and a medium of mass communication. We believe a historical perspective on the complex relationship between photography and democracy is critical to understanding how the medium and related visual technologies can address the social and political issues of our time.

In 2026, we invite you to join leading thinkers Anne Strachan Cross & Matthew Fox-Amato, Vindhya Buthpitiya, Leigh Raiford, Jeehey Kim, Zahid R. Chaudhary, and Tiffany Fairey for thought-provoking conversations on photography and democracy. Explore season two and register for all events here.