Into the Universe of Collected Images

Southeast Museum of Photography, Daytona March 29th - June 4th, 2022

Into the Universe of Collected Images is curated by Jaime Marie Davis in collaboration with Jacqueline Ennis-Cole, Panda de Haan, Christina Katsolis, Ashley Lumb, Southeastern Museum of Photography staff and public, with curatorial support provided by Paulina Szarleja. Sponsored in part by the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs and the Florida Council on Arts and Culture

Into the Universe of Collected Images is an exhibition highlighting significant photographs and objects from the Southeast Museum of Photography’s collection, focusing on renowned works of art from the early 20th century to international photographic practices of today.

The title of the show is inspired by writer Vilem Flusser’s influential and esoteric book Into the Universe of Technical Images wherein the author describes society as synthesizing images in a number of ways, and projects an idealistic future for their governance and imaginative potential. The author urges viewers to embrace a humanist approach to culture as both producers and collectors and to continually learn from information gained through the exchange of imagery—also critiquing its constructed meanings and changing contexts.

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As a participatory element to the exhibition, we are inviting the public to help curate the works that will be featured in the exhibition. Members of the public can vote on their favourite photos from the collection. The photographic works that receive the most votes in this online poll will be added to the exhibition over the course of its duration. Click here to make your selections and collaborate with us.

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The exhibition displays photographs alongside a series of associative actions to illustrate photography’s active states. ‘To Frame’, ‘To Amplify’, ‘To Face’, ‘To Report’, ‘To Yield’, ‘To Enchant’ and other dynamic prompts offer strategies to consider various aspects of photography and to reflect on processes of making, digitizing, circulating, and networking. These actions and accompanying text emerge throughout the space to make connections between various protagonists: photographers, camera lenses, subjects and audiences. The interventions also act as an invitation to think about how photographs exist in spaces with other senses, sense-making, and narratives that interact with each other.

Could we consider the universe of collected images to be expansive, yet contingent upon various elements and agents that constitute its existence? A collection of photographs shows us not one fixed view of the world, but instead, offers glimpses into oscillating systems of experiences, voices, and histories. We might be moved by some to face the discomfort and pain captured within their framing, challenged to rally behind them—or transported by others through a more inward, imaginative state.

Museum approaches to photography have had significant effects on the museums themselves, reflecting their own views on the status and specificity of the images, while also challenging traditional museum aspirations of originality and permanence of the artifact. While keeping in mind SMP’s foundation as an artist and educator led space, to its current position as a museum on a university campus, the exhibition aims to enrich areas between academic study, photographic practices and public access, and to ultimately foreground photography’s interactive possibilities. Continuing this interest, the exhibition includes a section co-curated by Southeast Museum of Photography’s public by an open call in response to the theme ‘To Transport’, wherein the theme was interpreted and photographs were selected from the collection to be shown together.

This presentation of more than 100 photographs from the collection includes well known works by Farm Security Administration photographers such as Marion Post Wolcott and Gordon Parks; activists such as Charles Moore and Tina Modotti; or popular works by Andy Warhol and Robert Rauschenberg. Lesser known pieces such as the poetic series by Rogelio Lopez Marin (Gory), annotated contact sheets of Henri Cartier-Bresson, vernacular glass plate images used for surveyal, or cameras and objects used for measurement are also included. Contemporary discussions surrounding contentious subjects are addressed through diverse photographic practices and frictions between contributions by, for example, Edward Curtis’ lifelong career documenting the American West and First Nation people, and familial relations within Leah King-Smith’s photo compositions ‘Patterns of Connections’.

Artists: Lola Álvarez-Bravo, Neil Armstrong, Dawoud Bey, Kate Brooks, Nan Brown, Julia Margaret Camero, Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Laurel Cazin, Andrey Chezhin, Edward S. Curtis, Phillippe Diederich, Benedict Joseph Fernandez, José Miguel Ferreira, Kelly Flynn, Judith Fox, Robert Frank, Lee Friedlander, George Gilbert, Lonnie Graham, Leah King-Smith, Richard H. LeSesne, Builder Levy, Jenni Lukac̆, Luis Mallo, Sally Mann, Rogelio López Marín (Gory), Susan Meiselas, Duane Michals, Tina Modotti, Charles Moore, Barbara Morgan, Eadweard Muybridge, Bea Nettles, Warren Padula, Gordon Parks, Lucian Perkins, Robert Rauschenberg, Eli Reed, Arthur Rothstein, Samuel Shere, W. Eugene Smith, Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand, Elisabeth Sunday, Marianne Thomas, Jerry Uelsmann, Andy Warhol, Carrie Mae Weems, Deborah Willis, John Willis, Marion Post Wolcott