Hippolyte Bayard, 1842 (public domain)

Photographs have been used to illustrate a great variety of genres within children’s literature. While many photographic illustrations from the beginning of the 20th century use staged scenes, or were part of the avantgarde experimentations within the media, documentary ambitions became increasingly common during the 1930s and 1940s and the photographic picturebook becomes a modern, educational and ideological medium. Many photographers and authors have created photobooks for children by combining photography with other artistic techniques, such as collage, photomontage and photograms. Inspired by ideas of a vanguard aesthetics, modernist artists often regarded photography as an aesthetic means to differentiate from the past in terms of form, style, and language. Similar kind of ideas can be traced in radical publishing for children during the 1960s and 1970s. As a result, within children’s literature, the choice of photography as a medium often expressed high aesthetic demands, but also ideological objectives. Thus, research concerning photography within children's literature is also closely connected to ideas and changes in the conceptions of childhood, which impact on the depiction of children in relation to cultural transformation and social change. 

The symposium at Stockholm University will introduce leading scholars from seven countries and offers a meeting point for exchange of knowledge and research results within children's literature, illustration history and photography. The symposium is admission free and open for all. For registration and zoom-link, please contact: elina.druker@littvet.su.se.

Speakers:

Laurence Le Guen, Mette Kia Krabbe Meyer, Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer, Jörg Meibauer, Jane Wattenberg, Monica Ruethers, Marnie Campagnaro, Anita Wincencjusz-Patyna and Elina Druker.

Contact

Have you got any questions regarding this event? Please contact Elina Druker: elina.druker@littvet.su.se

Programme

Day I 20 May

10:00

Welcome

10:15–10:50 

Marnie Campagnaro

 “A successful photograph is worth as much as a story”: The influence of Photography on Bruno Munari’s picturebooks

15-20 min break

11:10-11:45

Monica Rüthers

The visual construction of an all-Soviet childhood in Soviet Photobooks

11:45–12:20

Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer and Jörg Meibauer

Portrait of the child as a socialist: An inquiry into photographic picturebooks of the GDR

1 hour lunch

13:20–14:50

Mette Kia Krabbe Meyer

Immigrants and Elves: The Everyday and the Fantastic in Danish Photographical Children’s Books

14:30–15:15

Jane Wattenberg 

Spellbound: Lona, Dare Wright’s Haunting Photo-Fairytale

Day II 21 May

10:00–10:35

Anita Wincencjusz-Patyna 

From Halley's Comet to Scout Kwapiszon: On Photomontage in Polish Children's Fiction in the 20th Century

10:35–11:10     

Laurence Le Guen

From the ‘Children of all Lands Stories’ to the ‘Enfants du monde’ collection, providing a view of the Other in children’s literature

15-20 min break

11:25–12:00

Elina Druker 

In and out of focus: Anna Riwkin’s photojournalism and photographic picturebooks

12:00

Future plans and discussion