Introduction to Photography in China and Japan

For a stronger and more nuanced visual education, we need to move beyond the boundaries of Europe and the United States. Photography—at the intersection of art, document, and social practice—has followed a distinct trajectory in East Asia. In China and Japan, this visual medium has been deeply shaped by local traditions, the accelerated process of modernization, and the dynamics of political power, gradually constructing an extremely diverse and complex visual history.

Cristina Irian will explore the evolution of photography in China and Japan, two cultural spaces with rich yet very different visual traditions. Throughout the course, you will analyze photography in relation to major themes such as modernity, memory, ideology, visual poetics, and social critique. Following a critical chronology, you will examine key moments in which photography was not only a witness to social change, but also an active agent—ranging from images produced by 19th-century pioneers such as Felice Beato or Lai Afong to the provocative forms of contemporary photographic art represented by Nobuyoshi Araki, Wang Qingsong, and Rinko Kawauchi.

Each session combines historical context, image analysis, and critical debate, aiming to provide participants with a coherent framework for understanding East Asian photography both within its local logic and within the broader context of global visual culture.

What you will learn:

• about the history of photography in China and Japan;

• about East Asian photographers, their works, and their importance in global visual culture;

• how to analyze images by placing them in a historical, social, and political context.

  Each session includes: illustrated lectures, image-based discussions, case studies, and applied debate.

Course schedule:

• Sunday, March 22, 2026, 11:30–15:30

• Sunday, March 29, 2026, 11:30–15:30

• Sunday, April 26, 2026, 11:30–15:30

Course details:

The course is open to anyone interested in the history of photography, visual culture, East Asia, or the development of a critical vocabulary applicable to images.

About the lecturer, briefly:

Ana-Cristina Irian is a research-based artist, researcher, and curator, active in the field of collections, photographic archives, and multimedia projects. She studied sociology (Trento and Regensburg), visual anthropology (Bucharest and Perugia), and holds a PhD in Visual Arts from the National University of Arts in Bucharest. Her artistic practice, guided by the motto No one left behind, focuses on objects of memory and integrates photographic materials into contemporary art works. She has participated 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.She has been involved in projects such as Dacia 50 – an ethnography of the Dacia car after its 50 years, The Wells of Oltenia – a mapping of community wells 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 – Freedom.Body.Resistance, EERIE, The Titans– research based art. She published the object-book STRATA / B (Omnia Photo, 2020), and her visual experiments from 2016–2020 became two artist books included in the European Versopolis collection. She is the author of Photographic Collections and Archives Today, in the Digital World (2022) and The Production of Space and the Social Life of Artworks in the Street (2024). 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 Chester Photo Festival 2025.