Photographic Afterlives: Art, Archives and the Algerian War of Independence (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781526181695)

Photographic afterlives explores the cultural, social and political contexts in which photographs from the Algerian War of Independence (1954-1962) emerge in contemporary art and photobooks. It situates these practices against the backdrop of the wider archival turn in the humanities and the ongoing debates about archives in Algeria. Tracing the movement of historical photographs across multiple spaces, the book unravels the subsequent layers of meaning accrued by these images. It argues that as much as archival contemporary art performs an inquiry into the past, it equally speaks volumes about the distinct and ever-shifting needs of the present. Focused on the work of artists and photographers who excavate side-lined histories of the war, remediate well-known narratives and imagine histories that cannot be recovered from archives, Photographic afterlives shows the great potential of archives of decolonisation.

Author: Katarzyna Falecka
ISBN-10: 152618169X
ISBN-13: 9781526181695
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Language: English
Published: 06/02/2026
Pages: 224
Format: Hardcover