JOAN FONTCUBERTA. PHOTOGRAPHY THAT (REVEALS) REBELS. Seminar

Photography and other image-making media based on optical capture devices have shaped our visual culture, centred on the eye and the camera. But on the bicentenary of Nicéphore Niépce’s foundational image, the situation has changed: photography has come out of the closet. It has finally revealed its true nature, rebelling against the constraints that once confined it. The transition from alchemy to algorithms has not simply involved changing the ingredients in the way we ‘cook’ the image. It has also taught us that photography is no longer merely a means of capturing the world, but of simulating, shaping and inventing it.

Navigating between revelation and rebellion has provided the backdrop to much of contemporary art, and to my own work in particular: analysing the nature of images in order to enable a revolt against that very nature. Photography has never been neutral: it always reveals something and rebels against something else. Amid the current transformation of images, photographs—traditionally conceived as witnesses to reality—have become increasingly ambiguous artefacts. The advent of AI has accelerated this transformation, deepening the crisis surrounding the notion of visual truth. In this new landscape, rather than dying, photography is reconfiguring itself, becoming spectral and shape-shifting as it gathers strength and rises from the ashes like the phoenix. Yet we find ourselves thrust into a new order that provokes both uncritical fascination and apocalyptic rejection, and this ambivalence must be transcended. The objective is clear: if technology is the language of power, we must understand it in order to intervene.

The conceptual framework of this seminar is based on my most recent essay, Lliçons de coses: la fotografia que es (revela) rebel·la (Arcàdia, Barcelona, 2025), and presents examples from the contemporary art scene, alongside projects of my own, as case studies.

Joan Fontcuberta

JOAN FONTCUBERTA (Barcelona, 1955) is an artist, essayist, lecturer and exhibition curator. His creative practice explores the conflicts between nature, technology, photography and truth. Over the past five decades, his work has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions and monographic publications. He is the author of a dozen books on the history of photography and essays on the medium, and his artistic practice has been the subject of thirty monographs. His work has been exhibited at museums around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the MUN in Pamplona, the IVAM in Valencia, Foam in Amsterdam, the MEP in Paris and the Science Museum in London, and has been acquired by numerous public collections.

REGISTRATION

Participation in the seminar is free of charge, and prior registration is required. Applications will be accepted from 7 to 25 September 2026.

Those interested should email cgac.prensa@xunta.gal, providing the following information: full name, educational background, area of work or interest, email address and contact telephone number, as well as a letter explaining the applicant’s motivation for taking part.

Those selected to take part in the seminar will receive a confirmation email.

The seminar is open to all adults with an interest in photography.