Eyes Dazzle as They Search for the Truth

A talk accompanied by the project 'Eyes Dazzle as They Search for the Truth', in which Iranian artist Amin Yousefi rephotographs images from the 1979 Iranian Revolution, isolating moments when protesters direct their gaze back towards the photographer. Through rephotographing, cropping and magnification, the images examine the relationship between photographer and subject and complicate the conventional one-way relationship between observer and observed. At the event, Yousefi joins his long-time collaborator David Campany in conversation, interrogating what it means to look and to look back. Both speakers consider the photograph as a two-sided encounter in which the return of the gaze destabilises conventional ideas of photographic authority.