Early Photography in Colonial Australia explores the origins of the photographic culture that continues to shape how we see the world.
From its mid-nineteenth-century beginnings photography was more than just a new technology – it was deeply implicated in the colonial project. The invention of photographic technology coincided with the rise of imperial control across the Pacific, and many of its raw materials were extracted from colonised lands.
This book offers the first major study of photography’s arrival and establishment in colonial Australia. It places photographs in conversation with prints, sketches and watercolours to explore how the foreign medium adapted to the Australian environment, artistically and politically. It shows how cameras were put to work, visually redacting Indigenous custodianship and knowledge of Country to celebrate colonial construction and expeditions.
Early Photography in Colonial Australia reveals the complex power of the medium. Elisa deCourcy considers these early images beyond colonial systems of knowledge and their contemporary role in acts of colonial reckoning and First Nations cultural reclamation.
Format: Paperback / softback
Pages: 272
Imprint: Melbourne University Press
Supplier: Harper Entertainment Distribution Services
Subjects: Code PHO010000 (scheme 10), Code HIS028000 (scheme 10), Code HIS028030 (scheme 10), Code HIS004000 (scheme 10), Code AB (scheme 12), Colonial Visual Culture, Imperial Expansion, Indigenous Erasure, Cultural Reclamation, Photography as Power, Artistic Adaptation, Settler Colonialism, First Nations Knowledge, Visual Representation, Political Imagery, Australian History, Code AJ (scheme 93), Code NHM (scheme 93)
