Radical Intimacies: (Re)Designing the Impact of Documentary Photography

BACKGROUND This research responds to important critiques of epistemology of documentary photography (DP): Azoulay’s relation of DP with colonialism (2018), Donald Weber’s ideas on DP’s construction of value through awards (2018), DP’s narrow conception of impact (2019), and Duncombe’s work of Æfect of Activist Art (2016). This research recognises a lack of epistemic reflection in relation to social impact of DP and that there is close to no work on the interdisciplinarity between communication design (CD) and DP as critical social practice, a gap which I am addressing. My research question is: how can we think of and redesign DP’s impact through a current critical design perspective? CONTRIBUTION This research looks into how the DP and CD disciplines understand impact. Based on my past work with Memefest, my extensive work with documentary photographers and designers and my theoretical work, I put forward the argument that the design discipline uses, in a reflective manner, strategies which have a more complex and radical social impact. Based on the photographic work of Letizia Battaglia I propose Radical Intimacies as a concrete design strategy, which operates in a translational manner and can therefore be used also by Documentary Photography in order to (re) design its impact. This is the first research making this connection and contributes to both disciplines. SIGNIFICANCE The work holds important implications for a broadened understanding of impact in DP and a common epistemology of DP and CD. This is commissioned research for the photographic research publication Trigger, published by the Museum for Photography in Antwerp. It responds to the issue's thematic interest on the concept of 'Impact' as a social imperative for DP. This publication features eminent voices in photography like Shahidul Alam, Ariella Azoulay, Donald Weber, Neelika Jayawardane. Trigger operates online and in print and is distributed globally.