CONFERENCE SCHEDULE AS A PDF AVAILABLE HERE

International Association for Visual Culture: KINSHIP. FREEDOM. ABOLITION

Thursday, October 9—Dartmouth Hall 105

3:00—3:20 Arrivals and refreshments

3:20—Welcome—Kimberly Juanita Brown

3:30—Film viewing: And Water Brings Tomorrow, Ashley Hunt, dir.

5:30—Coffee break

6:00—Ashley Hunt in conversation with Kean O’Brien

6:30—Keynote—Jack Halberstam (Columbia University) Nothing Works: Anarchitecture, Abolition and The End of Everything (Chair: Jill Casid)

8:00-Dinner at Sawtooth Kitchen

Friday, October 10—Dartmouth Hall 105

8:30—Continental Breakfast

9:00am–9:10am - Welcome and Opening Remarks—Alex Bortolot, Deputy Director, Hood Museum of Art

Family Legacies

9:15am–10:15am
Discussant: Marianne Hirsch

This panel explores how visual archives and photographic practices reveal complex kinship formations shaped by sociopolitical forces. From China’s one-child policy to Indigenous community histories, the presentations engage with family, memory, and cultural legacies, highlighting visual storytelling as a means to critique dominant narratives and reclaim histories.

LiLi Johnson: “Visual Legacies of China's One Child Policy’

Amy Lonetree: “Indigenous Storywork and Historical Photography: Ho Chunk Kinship and Survivance Narratives” (Zoom)

10:15am–11:05am Visual Kinship Exhibition Tour—Alisa Swindell

11:15am–12:00pm— Artist Talk: Sim Chi Yin
In conversation with Deepali Dewan, Iyko Day and Thy Phu

12:00-1pm Lunch

1-2pm Public talk featuring Gina Dent (Jennifer Gonzalez) (Zoom)

2pm-3pm

Visualizing Separation, Resistance, and Relationality

Discussant: Laura Wexler

This panel focuses on themes of separation, carceral violence, and resistance, examining visual culture’s role in exposing systemic injustice and articulating solidarity. Through photographic works addressing migration, detention, and political asylum, the presentations illuminate how collaborative and performative practices redefine kinship and relationality under conditions of structural violence.

Ruby Tapia: “Photographic Landscapes of Separation and Resistance at the U.S.-Mexico Border”

Maral Aguilera-Moradipour: “Relationality and Resistance: The Photographic Collaborative Work of Behrouz Boochani and Hoda Afsha”

3-3:15

Coffee Break

Film screening: On the Tenderness of Men—Minou Norouzi, dir. (Chair: Marquard Smith)

3:15-4:15pm

4:30pm-5:00pm

Concluding remarks

Saturday, October 11—Dartmouth 105

9:30—Continental Breakfast

10:00—Keynote: David Marriott (Emory University) (Zoom) (Introduction: Sara Blaylock)

11:15—Coffee Break

11:30—Eray Çayli Book Talk—Earthmoving: Exctractivism, War, and Visuality in Northern Kurdistan—Marquard Smith, Balbir Singh, and Gabby Moser (Chair: Sara Blaylock)

12:30 Lunch

2:00—New Dimensions in Kinship, Freedom, and Abolition

Discussant: Brittney Frantece

Jemma Desai: “I do not want what I haven't got (after Sinead O'Connor and others)”

Nabiha Mansoor: “Refuting Kinship as Solidarity: Post-9/11 Racialization and the Brown Family in Divya Victor’s “Threshold”

Amanda Russhell Wallace: “Visualizing Subliminal Kinship and Biological Weathering” 

Eve Meltzer: “Not Me, Mine, Ours: The Work of the Negative in I Am Not Your Negro” 

3:30—Coffee Break

4:00 Closing remarks (Chair: Teresa Cisneros)