Localism(s)

About the Series

The “local” begins as a question about the scale and the particularity of place. Often, we see the framing of the “local” as both a critique of an expanding marketized world, and a means toward taking certain aspirational measures in the face of everyday life’s transformations. There are a variety of localisms about which we might engage. For example, economists discuss “market localism,” prioritizing production and consumption at the local level. As a normative political philosophy, the “local” offers to solve political and social unrest. For the social sciences, aspects of the “local” might indicate authenticity or societal cohesion (or the obverse). At the same time, “local” can be used pejoratively. We might cast someone’s ideas aside for being too “local” if preferences for a place limit one’s vision of the possibilities of engagement with the broader world. The “local” then is also about boundaries – what “local” are you for? What “local” are you against? The “local” might also define an image-making methodology.

The “local” establishes the scale of an investigation; searching for artifacts opens specific pathways for considering how people may have made meaning from their “local” environments. In photography specifically – and representational art broadly – the “local” may be considered as a trans-historical phenomenon, and so as image-makers we must think about our tendencies, both to repeat and resist canonical image-making methods.

Here is the starting point for Localism(s). The series will consist of episodic journeys through different localisms across various dimensions of images, text, collage, montage, materials, and production while remaining faithful to the original vision of each project’s collaborators. As this initiative considers an approach that is at once photographic and sociological, we aim to confront assumptions regarding what kinds of artifacts might become sociologically relevant and the boundaries of what can constitute photography and the photobook.