Photographic Objecthood:Construction, Presence and the Sculptural Encounter
Schedule
Wed Jan 21 2026 at 10:00 am to 07:00 pm
UTC+00:00Location
The Henry Moore Institute | Leeds, EN
About this Event
This symposium aims to provoke new approaches to the spatial, sensorial and sculptural potential of photography, exploring questions regarding the histories and futures of photographic objecthood.
Photographic Objecthood: Construction, Presence, and the Sculptural Encounter will bring together critics, academics and artists interested in the sculptural capacities of photography.
The programme opts not to examine the idea of ‘expanded’ photography where a hybridised ‘sculptural’ photograph is augmented through mixed media or in some way rendered three-dimensional. Speakers and contributors are instead invited to focus on artworks where conceptual, philosophical, or political meaning flows from a spatial or phenomenological encounter with a photograph of a specific scale and materiality.
This symposium is organised in collaboration with artist Fiona Crisp (Professor of Contemporary Art, Northumbria University).
Programme:
9.30 Registration and coffee
10.00 Introduction
Dr Sean Ketteringham, Henry Moore Institute and
Professor Fiona Crisp, Northumbria University
10.15 Chair: Dr Sean Ketteringham
Professor Fiona Crisp & Professor Hilde Van Gelder, University of Leuven
Impossible Space and Weak Images: Fiona Crisp and Hilde Van Gelder in-conversation.
11.00 Session One, Chair: Professor Hilde Van Gelder
Dr Duncan Wooldridge, artist/Manchester Metropolitan University
From the infra-thin to the photographic object: perceptual and technical encounters with photographic materialities.
Maria Luigia Gioffrè, Accademia Nazionale d’Arte Drammatica Silvio d’Amico, Rome
The Drifting Trace: Photography as Sculptural Trace of Social Media Theatricality
Xiangyin Gu, Royal College of Art
Disappearance: Photographic Objecthood in the Age of Algorithmic Memory
12.15 – 1.30 Lunch in The Studio (provided)
1.30 Session Two, Chair: Dr Sean Ketteringham
Dr Rachel Wells, Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford
Title tbc
Dr Elisaveta Ernst, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Between Light and Matter: Sigurður Guðjónsson and the Ontology of Photographic Presence
Dr Katarína Mašterová, Institute of Art History of the Czech Academy of Sciences
Jan Svoboda and the Sculptural Encounter of the Photograph
Michael Kurtz, writer and critic, & Nat Faulkner, artist
Nat Faulkner: Between Object and Objecthood
3.00 – 3.30 Break
3.30 pm Session Three, Chair: Professor Fiona Crisp
Julie F. Hill, artist
Meeting Space in Silver & Glass: Photographic objecthood & cosmic observation at the Harvard Plate Stacks.
Helen Robertson, artist/Central Saint Martins
Photography as Live Encounter
Professor Martin Newth, Glasgow School of Art
Objecthood and the Photographic Apparatus: Between Image, Material and Machine
5pm Open discussion
5.30pm Drinks served in The Studio
7pm Finish
Where is it happening?
The Henry Moore Institute, 74 The Headrow, Leeds, United KingdomEvent Location & Nearby Stays:
GBP 0.00
