Ariella Azoulay
Ariela Azoulay teaches political thought and visual culture at Brown University.
Her website can be found here.
Blog
A Civil State of Emergency—a photoessay by Ariella Azoulay
Jeff Wall, Citizen, 1996, black-and-white photograph, 71 1/4 x 92 1/8".
CITIZEN
The man sleeping in a public park in Jeff Wall's Citizen, 1996, represents an act of criticism, a transgression of borders, an inspiring example of both potential and practical citizenship. Ever since seeing Wall's photograph at Documenta 10 in 1997, whenever I see anyone asleep in a public park-whether someone homeless or someone, like the man in this image, who looks like he or she has a home to go to-I cannot help thinking of him or her as claiming a share in a public space. And if citizens can assert their right to sleep in public, they can also rebel against a sign prohibiting the erection of tents, such as the one that addresses visitors to Manhattan's Zuccotti Park.
Jacques Rancière postpones visit to Israel following an appeal from Palestinian boycott movement
French political philosopher and leading intellectual Jacques Rancière has postponed a visit to Israel, where he was due to speak at Tel Aviv University, after receiving an open letter from the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI).
PACBI, in a letter published online, wrote to Rancière urging him "in the strongest terms" to cancel his visit to the university which they claim "is complicit in maintaining a regime of occupation, colonialism and apartheid." The letter went on to explain that Rancière's decision to ignore the letter would "violate the Palestinian call for boycott," and, "constitute a blunt rejection of the appeal from over 170 civil society organisations that comprise the Palestinian BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) movement."
Rancière was invited to Tel Aviv by, among others, Ariella Azoulay director of the Photo Lexic Research Group at the Minerva Humanities Center. In response to the letter from the PACBI, Rancière, who was due to give a lecture on 25 January, explained why he initially agreed to speak in Israel,
I accepted the invitation to contribute to the debate on the image, of a research group whose work on photography is closely related to the exposure of violations of the rights of the Palestinian people since the birth of the State of Israel.
Books
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Civil Imagination
The “Copernican Revolution” in studying photography brings to light how images can both reinforce and resist power regimes.