Description: Photographic objects are embedded in urban contestation, aesthetically charged by artists, reinserted into social histories, and mobilized to imagine a future city. Photogenic Montreal takes a question initially posed by heritage debates - what does photography preserve? - and creates a rich conversation about the agency of the human actors before and behind the camera, and of the medium itself.
Brief description: Martha Langford C.M. FRSC is distinguished professor emerita of art history at Concordia University.
Review Quotes: "Post-industrial Montreal has engendered countless photographic representations of itself, which have in turn shaped the city's sense of its own changing urbanity. The delightful essays in Photogenic Montreal synthesize the competing activist and archival impulses behind the photographic practices they explore. With its city-centric approach, the volume makes an important, Montreal-focused contribution to the study of architecture, photography, and the city." Peter Sealy, University of Toronto