Photographs have been used to illustrate a great variety of genres within children’s literature. While many photographic illustrations from the beginning of the 20th century use staged scenes, or were part of the avantgarde experimentations within the media, documentary ambitions became increasingly common during the 1930s and 1940s and the photographic picturebook becomes a modern, educational and ideological medium. Many photographers and authors have created photobooks for children by combining photography with other artistic techniques, such as collage, photomontage and photograms. Inspired by ideas of a vanguard aesthetics, modernist artists often regarded photography as an aesthetic means to differentiate from the past in terms of form, style, and language. Similar kind of ideas can be traced in radical publishing for children during the 1960s and 1970s. As a result, within children’s literature, the choice of photography as a medium often expressed high aesthetic demands, but also ideological objectives. Thus, research concerning photography within children's literature is also closely connected to ideas and changes in the conceptions of childhood, which impact on the depiction of children in relation to cultural transformation and social change.
The symposium at Stockholm University will introduce leading scholars from seven countries and offers a meeting point for exchange of knowledge and research results within children's literature, illustration history and photography. The symposium is admission free and open for all. For registration and zoom-link, please contact: elina.druker@littvet.su.se.
Speakers:
Laurence Le Guen, Mette Kia Krabbe Meyer, Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer, Jörg Meibauer, Jane Wattenberg, Monica Ruethers, Marnie Campagnaro, Anita Wincencjusz-Patyna and Elina Druker.
Contact
Have you got any questions regarding this event? Please contact Elina Druker: elina.druker@littvet.su.se
Programme
Day I 20 May
10:00
Welcome
10:15–10:50
Marnie Campagnaro
“A successful photograph is worth as much as a story”: The influence of Photography on Bruno Munari’s picturebooks
15-20 min break
11:10-11:45
Monica Rüthers
The visual construction of an all-Soviet childhood in Soviet Photobooks
11:45–12:20
Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer and Jörg Meibauer
Portrait of the child as a socialist: An inquiry into photographic picturebooks of the GDR
1 hour lunch
13:20–14:50
Mette Kia Krabbe Meyer
Immigrants and Elves: The Everyday and the Fantastic in Danish Photographical Children’s Books
14:30–15:15
Jane Wattenberg
Spellbound: Lona, Dare Wright’s Haunting Photo-Fairytale
Day II 21 May
10:00–10:35
Anita Wincencjusz-Patyna
From Halley's Comet to Scout Kwapiszon: On Photomontage in Polish Children's Fiction in the 20th Century
10:35–11:10
Laurence Le Guen
From the ‘Children of all Lands Stories’ to the ‘Enfants du monde’ collection, providing a view of the Other in children’s literature
15-20 min break
11:25–12:00
Elina Druker
In and out of focus: Anna Riwkin’s photojournalism and photographic picturebooks
12:00
Future plans and discussion