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The conference brings together international photography researchers, artists and academics and is organized by Aalto University in collaboration with University of the Arts Helsinki, Visual Studies Lab at Tampere University, and LAB Institute of Design and Fine Arts.
Conference dates: 15.4.–17.4.2026
Venue: Aalto University, Dipoli Conference center (Otakaari 24, 02150 Espoo, Finland)
Theme: Placeholders*
Technical images have decisively reshaped how space and place are conceived. They have contributed to the logic of a ‘world-picture’ by unsettling the apparatus that organises spatiality and by reconfiguring how bodies, things, and events ‘take place’. The logic of the camera obscura bound our understanding of space to vision and optics: places could be plotted on spatialised models with coordinates. Photographic technologies both materialise particular spatialisations and generate fragments that are lifted, displaced, or misplaced. Coupled with electricity and, more recently, with digital networks and generative systems, photographs participate in remote sensing and remote control, from telepresence and simulation to platform logistics and urban dashboards.
In this environment, what takes place also feels out of place: rendered ubiquitous and substitutable, ready to be replaced by an equivalent, a representation, or a proxy. Tokens, templates, and proxies circulate across screens and databases, standing in for sites and situations that remain elsewhere. The result is a tension between localisation and fungibility, between the grounded specificity of a scene and the ease with which it can be exported, recombined, or automated.
Read more about the theme here
Keynote speakers: Ali Shobeiri, Gillian Rose and Munem Wasif
Important dates
– Submission Deadline: November 30, 2025
– Notification of Acceptance: January 31, 2026
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