The Future of Photography’s Past

Guest speakers:

Philippe Herbet, Writer, Photographer, and Traveller
Emmanuel d’Autreppe, Lecturer at ESA Saint-Luc Liège, Photography Historian, Editor, Critic, and Exhibition Curator.

A distinctly literary voice recounts a strange experience: a return to photography accompanied by a stay in a castle, the one that once housed the artist Félicien Rops and his circle, and a fascination, almost an obsession, with a handful of old portraits, beloved departed figures, and buried memories. Photography and writing join forces to summon them back, or perhaps fail to do so, delightfully and with flair.

A second, more elusive voice blends images and genres, nostalgia for former practices and for the Belle Époque, that time when photography still possessed something magical and untamed. In this age of artificial intelligences and synthetic images, has that path been lost? Perhaps not... We must continue to believe in light, even in its faintest glimmers.

Two voices alternate, call out to one another and respond; and above all, between them, they leave room for the echoes of many others, near and far. For photography is indeed a slow art that, like a snail, carries its history on its back. Even amid chaos, the dizzying speed of modern life and visual overconsumption, its past experiments, or its experience of the past, have not exhausted their final sparks nor revealed their last enigmas; they still hold our eyes and hearts in their grasp.

Biographies

Philippe Herbet is a writer, photographer, and traveller. For more than twenty-five years, he has directed much of his writing toward Eastern Europe and the former Soviet republics, publishing numerous books ranging from travel narratives and accounts of wandering to essays with varying degrees of autobiographical inspiration. He is currently completing an exhibition and a book combining texts and images devoted to Charlotte Polet de Faveaux, the wife of Félicien Rops.

Emmanuel d’Autreppe is a lecturer at ESA Saint-Luc Liège, a photography historian, editor, critic, and exhibition curator. His fields of interest include historical photography, contemporary art, and the timeless words that seek to build bridges between them, bridges that may be crossed backwards, or even against the grain.