An exploration of the rich and varied relationship between photography and the most recent Argentine dictatorship. Familiar Faces offers a diverse, theoretically rich, and empirically informed exploration of photography in Argentina's memorial, political, and artistic landscape.
During the country's most recent civic-military dictatorship (1976-1983), 30,000 people were disappeared or killed by the state. Over the decades, vernacular and professional photographs have been central to the Argentine struggle for justice. They were used not only to protest the disappearances under the dictatorship and to denounce the authorities, but also as tools of political and social activism, and for remembering the disappeared.
With contributions from leading Argentina-based anthropologists, ethnographers, curators, art scholars, media researchers and photographers,
Familiar Faces moves beyond the traditional considerations of representation, focusing instead on the ways in which photography is continuously re-imagined as a tool of memory, mourning, and political and judicial activism. In so doing, it considers the diverse uses of press photography; artistic practice; photographs of the disappeared in domestic rituals; photographs of the inmates of torture centres; the reclamation of images taken by the dictatorial state for memorial and activist purposes.
Written and published at a crucial moment in Argentine memory politics,
Familiar Faces offers a geographically and formally diverse selection of case studies, with international as well as regional resonance. While firmly rooted in this national context, the book contributes to wider, global debates about the increasingly pervasive role of the photographic image in relation to state-sponsored, large-scale violence.
對於攝影與最近阿根廷獨裁政權之間豐富而多樣的關係進行探索。
《熟悉的面孔》提供了一個多元、理論豐富且以實證為基礎的探索，聚焦於阿根廷的紀念、政治和藝術景觀。在該國最近的公民-軍事獨裁政權（1976-1983）期間，約有30,000人被國家失踪或殺害。數十年來，民間和專業攝影作品在阿根廷爭取正義的鬥爭中扮演了核心角色。這些照片不僅用於抗議獨裁下的失踪事件和譴責當局，還作為政治和社會行動的工具，以及紀念失踪者的方式。
《熟悉的面孔》匯集了來自阿根廷的頂尖人類學家、民族誌學家、策展人、藝術學者、媒體研究者和攝影師的貢獻，超越了傳統的表現考量，專注於攝影如何不斷被重新想像為記憶、哀悼以及政治和司法行動的工具。在此過程中，該書考量了新聞攝影的多樣用途；藝術實踐；在家庭儀式中對失踪者的照片；酷刑中心囚犯的照片；以及對獨裁國家拍攝的影像進行的紀念和行動主義的重申。
在阿根廷記憶政治的關鍵時刻撰寫和出版的《熟悉的面孔》，提供了一個地理和形式上多樣的案例研究選擇，具有國際及區域的共鳴。雖然該書深深扎根於這一國家背景，但也對有關攝影影像在國家贊助的大規模暴力中日益普遍的角色的更廣泛全球辯論作出了貢獻。
Piotr Cieplak is a filmmaker, writer, and academic. Prior to joining the University of Sussex as Senior Lecturer in Filmmaking, he held positions at SOAS, Africa Research Institute, and Brunel University London. Piotr's films have won awards and screened widely at international film festivals, conferences, and on television. His work combines academic research and creative practice and is concerned with the interaction between memory and the still and moving image, especially in the context of the depiction of genocide, political violence, mourning, and individual and collective trauma in film and professional and domestic photography.
