Conference by Hasan G. López Sanz

Taking some photographic projects by Zanele Muholi as a starting point, the purpose of this conference is to create a historical and visual genealogy of the work of the South African artist. Comparing her images with those taken by European and African photographers since the 19th century, some of the accepted ideas become problematic in relation to the colonial point of view. The conference will also present some developments in the pipeline for a book project which López Sanz is working on, whose title will be something along the lines of: UNA historia de la fotografía africana al sur del Sáhara desde sus orígenes hasta la contemporaneidad: dinámicas, estéticas y tendencias (A history of African photography south of the Sahara from its origins to the present day: dynamics, aesthetics and trends). A story of photography created by Africans since the daguerreotype was patented in 1839 until present times, which is still a great unknown for Spanish speaking people today.

Hasan G. López Sanz is a Doctor of Philosophy and a Graduate in Social Anthropology, Culture and Philosophy. A lecturer in Aesthetics and Theory of Art at the Philosophy Faculty of the University of Valencia and a curator of exhibitions, with research carried out in the field of photography, its practices and public use, particularly in relation to Anthropology, aesthetics and contemporary art. Among his publications, some notable books are La misión etnográfica y lingüística Dakar-Djibouti y el fantasma de África (The ethnographic and linguistic mission Dakar-Djibouti and the ghost of Africa) (PUV, 2009), La pluma y la cámara. Antropología y memoria colonial en blanco y negro (The pen and the camera. Anthropology and colonial memory in black and white) (Muvaet, 2014), Zoos humanos, ethnic freaks y exhibiciones etnológicas. Una aproximación desde la antropología, la estética y la creación artística contemporánea (Humans zoos, ethnic freaks and ethnological exhibitions. An approximation from anthropology, aesthetics and contemporary artistic creation) (Concreta, 2017) and La pintura de frontera de George Catlin. Una etnografía entre la escritura de viajes y la imagen (The frontier paintings of George Catlin. An ethnography of the travel writings and images) (PUV, 2019).