From Site to Sight: Anthropology, Photography, and the Power of Imagery

Date: 

Tuesday, April 24, 2018, 6:00pm

Location: 

Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street

 Studio portrait of an Aymará Indian of La Paz, Bolivia by Ricardo Villaalba, c. 1870. Hand-colored carte de visite. PM 2004.29.10557. Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology. ©President and Fellows of Harvard College

Free Public Lecture and Book Signing

Melissa Banta, Projects Curator, Weissman Preservation Center, Harvard Library Museum Associate, Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, Harvard University

In 1986, the Peabody Museum mounted From Site to Sight,
 a groundbreaking traveling exhibition on the historic and contemporary uses of photography in anthropology. Using visual materials from the museum’s photographic archives
and research by Harvard anthropologists, the recently reissued exhibition catalog investigates how anthropologists have employed the camera as a recording and analytic tool, as well as the broader implications of the uses—and misuses—of visual imagery within the human sciences. Melissa Banta, coauthor of the publication, will discuss the history and diversity of the Peabody’s photographic archive and developments in the history of photography since the publication of From Site to Sight.

Free event parking at 52 Oxford Street Garage.

This lecture will not be recorded.