A Panel discussion with Sara Russell, whose exhibition of photographs documenting everyday life in the West Bank ‘Another Day’ is currently running at the IHRC Gallery spaces, visual artist Zita Holbourne,  photographer Aimee Valinski and artist and curator Nasreen Shaikh Jamal al-Lail.

The programme starts at 6.45pm (GMT +1) on Friday 12 September 2014 and will be broadcast on www.ihrc.tv. Please email events[AT]ihrc.org if you want to be pat of the audience.  The panel will discuss the process of documentation and how it contributes to both art and advocacy.

Venue: IHRC Gallery & Bookshop, 202 Preston Road, Wembley, HA9 8PA, nearest tube Preston Road (1 minute walk, Metropolitan Line), South Kenton (12 minutes walk, Bakerloo line), nearest overgound South Kenton (as before).

 About the event

The word ‘documentation’ assumes the noting of facts, as they are, in an unbiased manner. On the other hand, ‘photographing’ is an act of capturing and depicting of what is real. That is, how much of the ‘real’ are we seeing? In a globalised and demythologised world it is difficult to capture authenticity; in fact, we attempt to construct the authentic in order to have a locus from which we can judge ourselves. An attempt at creating an absolute ‘Other’ that allows us to view our own nature. Therefore, what we see through documentary photography tell us something about our own function as much as that of the captured object. The central aim of this discussion is to bring the conflicting strands together and show that notions of the real are as fluid as our understanding of the fleeting and complex nature of identity. (NSJ)