Writing with Light Magazine, Issue no.1 Photography & Forensics, is published both digitally and as a limited-run print edition. Our digital edition is published in partnership with the Institute for Community Engaged Research (ICER) Press.

Photography, Forensics, & the Politics of Recognition

with works by Alejandro Flores, Lee Douglas, Clemente Bernad, Álvaro Minguito, Gustavo Germano, Vanina de Monte, Natalia Fortuny & Jordana Blejmar

Writing with Light is an editorial and curatorial project that started more than seven years ago with the objective of exploring ways to showcase photo-essays authored by anthropologists. With the support of Cultural Anthropology and Visual Anthropology Review, the project helped establish peer-review rubrics for multi-modal ethnographic works.

Writing with Light is now entering into a new publication phase by transforming the single photo-essay into a magazine. We have developed a new design approach that we call “print forward” the aim is to design first for print and second for digital distribution. In this first issue, we approach this challenge, by focusing on a single, but equally complex, question regarding the role of photography in mass grave exhumations, carried out in post-violence contexts. Using the work of anthropologists and filmmaker Alejandro Flores, we start by entering into a conversation about a specific photographic essay. This edited conversation provides a window onto the editorial process, thus highlighting the kind of conceptual, theoretical and visual work that photo-essays do. The magazine will also include contributions from anthropologists and photographers working in Spain, Argentina, and Colombia in order to open discussion about the ethical and political implications of photographic practices that document the forensic process in post-violence contexts. Below, an excerpt of our conversation with Alejandro Flores and a small selection of images from his photo-essay.

Our first issue focuses on forensic photography in the aftermath of state violence. It features the work of four different photographers and follows a conversation between Guatemalan anthropologist and media-maker Alejandro M. Flores Aguilar and WwL Collective members Craig Campbell and Lee Douglas. As a point of departure, the conversation then turns to contributions from photographers working in other contexts. Àlvaro Minguito and Clemente Bernad present a co-authored photo essay resulting from ongoing exchanges about the roles of images in contemporary Spain, where exhumations are not officially recognized by courts of law and images play an important role in evidencing violence exercised by the Franco regime.

Next, Argentine photographer Gustavo Germano, in a collaboration with graphic designer Vanina de Monte, narrates the search for his disappeared brother’s remains. The photo essay is accompanied by a text, authored by Drs. Natalia Fortuny and Jordana Blejmar, that describes Germano’s potent project where his visual work pieces together clues and information gathered over thirty years.

This first issue is edited by Lee Douglas and Craig Campbell.

Our first issue is now out!

*** Trigger Warning: This project description includes images of human remains.***