"An American Vision": the annual conference of the society for photographic education Austin, TX - 2003.

The Society for Photographic Education was founded forty years ago in Chicago following the historical meeting of 1962 in Rochester at the George Eastman House. This March, SPE held its annual national conference in Austin (TX), under the theme An American Vision. A year and a half after the tragedy of the World Trade Center, after months that saw an unprecedented increase in flag sales, and while the country was "at war" on foreign soil, An American Vision was bound to raise questions and expectations. Moreover, in a period during which most of its founders retired, SPE could take this opportunity and reassess the impact of its members' work on the photographic scene. The chosen theme of the conference also provided an interesting platform to try and define what an "American vision" was in the field of photography; how idiosyncratic American photography was; what role and impact it had played internationally.

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In the words of Lawrence McFarland, this year's conference chair, "The idea of An American Vision was to explore the dreams that have made the continent of America unique." A quick look at the program would rapidly scale the statement down to what it really meant: the continent, there, except for an interesting panel of Cuban photographers, was limited to the United States. If any, there were very few traces of South American photography and none of Canadian photography. Regarding the subject of "dreams," the participants were in fact more confronted with the various realities of our time than asked to partake in any reinvestigation of the various myths and ideologies that built and were generated by this nation. As an example, most of the works that students showed was definitely anchored in digital technology. It addressed issues of identity, the students' identities, or questioned the very medium they were using. While Desert Storm II, the Return was raging, and the discontent of a good percentage of the population reverberated in the streets of many an American metropolis, including Austin, the conference proposed an unusual number of presentations on the various rivers of the country--from High Water by David Taylor, The River's Green Margins by Allen Hess and John Lawrence, A Delta Journey by Bruce West, to Riverwalk to Stillwater by William Wylie--, an interesting take on the idea of the eye of the hurricane. In spite of their somewhat paradoxical presence in times of trouble, the above-mentioned presentations could be seen as extensions of one central theme of American photography: landscape. In fact, American photographers, since the disappearance of the New York Photo League in the early nineteen fifties, have extended a long tradition. It originated on the West coast in the nineteenth century with artists such as Eadweard Muybridge, or Carleton Watkins, then was carried on by the Weston dynasty, Ansel Adams, and later Minor White. Whereas the post-WW II period in Europe, and especially in Paris, gave birth to numerous photo agencies specialized in social and political documentary (Rapho, Magnum, Gamma, Viva, ...,) the nineteen seventies gave us the New Topographics, Garry Winogrand, Eugene Atget (reborn), William Eggleston, more prints and portfolios, at a higher price, by Ansel Adams, as well as photographic education, and a growing fine-art photography market. One of the strong development that post-modernism brought to American photography was a new focus on feminism and multi-culturalism. As usual, the SPE conference embraced these with various caucuses that were variously attended.

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Going back to Lawrence McFarland's definition of An American Vision, only two events seemed to relate to the material that dreams are made of: Organic Magic by Keith Carter, an inspired, as well as entertaining and didactic lecture that legitimately drew an audience exceeding the capacity of the room in which it was scheduled, and Lady Warriors, a moving video documentary by John Goheen on seven Navajo teenage girls who won the Arizona cross-country running title. I must admit that I felt somewhat dismayed to be, for most of its duration, the only audience for this latter showing. It had been programmed just before one of the key-speakers' lectures and probably suffered from the timing and location of that event.

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The conclusion of the conference can still be that photography is a predominantly male and female Caucasian medium and art. Native voices shone by their absence. Out of 67 presentations, one considered the case of Arab Americans whereas The Confused Indian dealt with being an Indian from India in the USA.

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However, looking back, this SPE conference was extremely rich in what it generally does well when it does not have a specific theme. With 67 seven presentations, over 1,000 attendees--almost as many as in Las Vegas in 2002--and prominent key-speakers, it provided content, information, contacts, and exchanges in a very smooth fashion thanks to the good planning of its organizing team. This year the usual gallery tour was a paying one, which limited not only attendance but cost (for the organizers.) As a result, fewer grumblings were to be heard about the waiting and the frequency of the buses (only had the conference in Savannah, two years before, accomplished that, ... but there were no buses in 2001 as the participants could leisurely walk from one gallery to the next.)

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In Austin, the three key-lecturers illustrated SPE's constituency: Joel Meyerowitz demonstrated how a photographer should react intuitively and professionally to an event that has a phenomenal historical dimension. In doing so, he also defined how much of a New Yorker and a fine artist he is. As "the only eye in the place," he realized how crucial the recording of history in the making was for the next generations. "No photograph means there is no history." The sublime quality of the responsibility as well as its subject did not prevent him, while he was evoking it, to say "a prayer for the people of Bagdad who are also innocent victims." He reminded his audience that the "evil" instincts at play on 9/11 had been re-appropriated, and were now triggering destructive and traumatizing deeds perpetrated in Iraq in our name. The "merciful" gods of the three major Mediterranean religions seem to have been the first victims of people killing in their names, as the case has been since the first medieval crusades: history stands helpless in front of rage and hubris! This point could perfectly be illustrated by Joel Meyerowitz with an 8x10 photograph showing an NYFD fireman standing against the smoking rubble of the World Trade Center, or a future image of Bagdad taken by Simon Norfolk, in the vein of his recent book Afghanistan: Chronotopia (to be reviewed in our next issue.) The second key-speaker, and honored educator of this year's conference, was Evon Streetman who, in a tongue-in-cheek style and warm tone (she is a photographer,) introduced her audience to the concept of education as fulcrum--a term which, I guess, will now stand in every educator's vocabulary well next to Barthes's "punctum" and "studium." Last but not least came Anne Wilkes Tucker who presented her vision and work concerning the making of the photography collection at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. In her introductory note, Tucker, a former VSW alumna, quickly reconsidered Nathan Lyons's approach to "sequence" and "series" and then went on with the expose of her accomplishments in Houston that made Time magazine name her "America's Best Curator" in 2001. Her scholarly and typically "VSWian" approach led her to convince a major Texas institution to build its collection around the work of Robert Frank, with, of course, The Americans being its chore. This example of a curator's work, commitment, dedication, and responsibility cast an interesting take on An American Vision, the theme of the conference, as well as establishing the proof that enlightenment does not slow down has it moves south!

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As a final note I would like to acknowledge two initiatives of the conference that advocated and reinforced a sense of photographic community: the various prizes awarded to students for their artistic works by the photographic industry (Freestyle, Ilford, Kodak, ...,) and the slide projection given in memory of the disappeared members of the photographic community. The Society for Photographic Education will hold its 2004 national conference in Newport (RI). Its "global" theme will be Photography and Place: Home - Neighborhood-Nation-World.

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TEXT BY BRUNO CHALIFOUR