Introductory Course: Women Photographers in History: Continental Perspectives

This course aims to investigate the role of women in the development of photography from a historical, critical, and transcontinental perspective. Over six thematic sessions, we will analyze the essential contributions of women photographers from diverse geographical spaces—Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Oceania—outlining a complex visual map of female expression in photography.

In a field initially marked by the marginalization of female voices, the course aims to highlight not only artistic creations, but also the conditions of production, representational strategies and social implications of women's photographic practice. From Anna Atkins' botanical experiments to Zanele Muholi's radical interventions or Rinko Kawauchi's visual poems, we will traverse a global map of female photographic expression, and explore how these artists negotiated aesthetic, political and identity positions in a historical context often dominated by male visions.

Through this comparative and interdisciplinary approach, the course offers a critical reassessment of the photographic canon and a theoretical framework for understanding how gender influences the production and reception of photographic images.

This course is open to all those interested in the history of photography and gender studies; people interested in contemporary visual art and curatorship, visual anthropology, cultural history or media studies.

The course includes illustrated lectures, image analyses, guided discussions, and thematic bibliography.

Ana-Cristina Irian is a research-based artist, researcher and curator, active in the field of collections, photographic archives and multimedia projects, with studies in sociology (Trento and Regensburg), visual anthropology (Bucharest and Perugia) and a PhD in visual arts from the National University of Arts in Bucharest. Her artistic practice, guided by the motto No one left behind , emphasizes objects of memory and integrates photographic materials into contemporary artworks. She has participated with works in over 50 exhibitions in Romania and abroad and is a member of the Union of Visual Artists of Romania and the European platform Futures. Cristina has been involved in projects such as Dacia 50 – an ethnography of the Dacia car at 50 years old , Oltenia Fountains – a mapping of community fountains in southern Romania , Arhive poVestite – recovery and promotion of private photographic archives , Fragmentum , Heretheylived , #mili-eu. Ileana, Mr. B's grandmother , Debara , Sacoșa Est-Vest – Libertate.Corp.Resistance , EERIE, The Titans – research based art . She published the object work STRATA / B (Omnia Photo, 2020), and the visual experiments made between 2016–2020 became two object books: The seven poems of Cristina Irian and The eighth poem of Cristina Irian , made in collaboration with the artist Mircea Bochiș and included in the European collection Versopolis – Technological Innovations in Literature. She is the author of the volumes Photographic Collections and Archives Today, in the Digital World (2022) and Space Production and the Social Life of Street Art (2024), published by Tritonic Publishing House. In 2024, she was a finalist at the LensCulture Art Photography Awards. Her most recent project, The Titans and the Vanishing Green, is presented at the Chester Photo Festival 2025.

Other details:

The course has 6 sessions:

• Thursday, September 25, 6:00 PM-9:00 PM

• Thursday, October 2, 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM

• Thursday, October 9, 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM

• Thursday, October 16, 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM

• Thursday, October 23, 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM

• Thursday, October 30, 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM

No technical knowledge of photography is required – the course is geared towards critical understanding of the image and its contextualization in visual and social history.