Membrana

Deadline: April 2, 2019

Throughout the twentieth century, political and social protests have become one of the most widespread forms of political contention and collective social action and are to an ever greater extent shaping the contours of public debate since the beginning of the new millennium. Unsurprisingly, within the present milieu of crumbling social consensus, growing political polarization and legitimacy crisis of key institutions of modern state, various forms of political and social protests are on the rise. Visual capabilities of new communication technologies have not only significantly changed the nature and extent of documentation and challenged the institutionalized mediation and communication, but also contributed to codification, even standardization of the visual representations of protests. Strained between symbols (e.g. tank man), metaphors (e.g. protesters giving flowers to police/military) and visual clichés (e.g. rock-throwing masked protester), images of protests and protesters play an important role in struggles over interpretation of the events, legitimacy of protester’s demands and their status as either citizens, crowds, “the people” or mobs. Moreover, protest visuals are not simply part of representation of events; they are increasingly becoming tools of political mobilization, resistance and even modes of protesting themselves through image-based activism, documentation and archiving projects and more.

We invite textual and visual contributions that explore both images of protest and protest through images from (but not limited to) the following perspectives:

• representation of protests and protesters
• protest images as icons, symbols, metaphors or clichés
• circulation and reinterpretation of protest imagery
• mimicking iconic photographs
• historical perspectives of protest imagery
• protests and photography
• changes of protest paradigm
• protests and/on social media
• archiving
• surveillance
• visual activism
• protests in art

Format of contributions

• Essays, theoretical papers, overview articles, interviews (approx. 14.000 characters with spaces), visuals encouraged.
• Theoretical articles (approx. 20.000 characters with spaces), visuals encouraged.
• Short essays, columns (approx. 6.000 characters with spaces), visuals encouraged.
• Photographic projects and artwork: proposals for non-commissioned work or samples of work.

Contributions will be published in the English edition – magazine Membrana (ISSN 2463-8501) as well as in the Slovenian edition – magazine Fotografija (ISSN 1408-3566).

Proposals and deadlines

Please contact the editors at editors(at)membrana.org. The deadline for contribution proposals (150-word abstracts and/or visuals) is April 2, 2019. The deadline for finished contributions from accepted proposals is June 24, 2019. Please send proposals or contact the editors at editors(at)membrana.org.

About Membrana

Membrana is a contemporary photography magazine dedicated to promoting a profound and theoretically grounded understanding of photography. Its aim is to encourage new, bold, and alternative conceptions of photography as well as new and bold approaches to photography in general. Positioning itself in the space between scholarly magazines and popular publications, it offers an open forum for critical reflection on the medium, presenting both analytical texts and quality visuals. The magazine is published biannually in the summer and winter in the English language and in Slovenian under the title Fotografija by the Slovene non-profit institute Membrana.

More about the third edition can be found HERE.

Contact

Membrana, Maurerjeva 8, SI-1000, Ljubljana, Slovenia.

editors(at)membrana.org / mail(at)membrana.org