Peace Photography or: Bearing Witness to the Light

This paper explores the conditions of possibility for peace photography. It is common to refer to photojournalists as witnesses, especially in war situations, collecting visual evidence – documentation carrying evidentiary weight. However, photojournalism seems exhausted, standardized and predictable, paralyzed by its own success and challenged by citizen photographers; it normalizes war and marginalizes peace. This paper develops a conceptual approach to peace photography by asking: What would a photography look like which manages to interrupt the naturalization of war and systematically engages with peace in ways other than by referring to peace negatively, that is to say, by depicting its absence? What is needed is a photography that focusses on process, not moment; a photography that succeeds in visualizing the transition from aftermath of war to prelude to peace. What is needed, is photographic representation of prospects of peace which bears witness not to the darkness, but to the light.