School of Social and Political Science

Description

Where the devastations of decades of armed conflict and aspirations for self-determination continue to shape the Tamil political imagination, this book examines how communities in northern Sri Lanka look to the camera to evidence, articulate and visualise what is politically possible. Located against the backdrop of Sri Lanka’s civil war (1983-2009) and its turbulent aftermath, ‘A Volatile Picture’ traces the making and moving of images across repertoires, borders, and generations. Here, photography is wielded to hopeful and inflammatory political effect,  situating the medium as an incendiary agent- simultaneously evidencing and triggering violence, sustaining memory, and inciting new visions of liberation.