Re-Imagining Return to the Marshes

To decolonize photographic histories is to rethink the fundamental aspects of visual documentation, from approach to intention, and the power dynamics therein. In exploring both historic and contemporary visual representations of the SWANA region—including through photographic archives from Iraq by locals and visitors—I examine the colonial gaze in these archives by bringing them into conversation with my own work. I explore how histories can be colonized even in imagination. I do this by reflecting on the reclamation of historical narratives by photographers and artists, and engaging in an approach to decolonizing images that centres community action and collective participation, using photographic histories in the present. How might colonized histories be re-framed and how can we imagine new ways of examining those histories through photography?