Knowing Through Photography: Rethinking Photographic Practice in Research.
The University of Stirling Art Collection is co-hosting an online workshop, Knowing through Photography: Rethinking Photographic Practice in Research with Dr. John Post and Dr. Neil Crawford on Wednesday 28 October 2026.
We are currently seeking contributions as we form the day. Applications close by the end of Friday 4 September, 2026. Please read below to learn more.
The place of photography in research is changing. Photographic practice is increasingly recognised not simply as a means of documenting or communicating research, but as a way of undertaking it. This shift is reflected in the growing prominence of practice research, artistic research, visual methodologies, and interdisciplinary approaches that position image-making as a site of investigation rather than simply a means of representation. The workshop responds to this growing recognition by asking a question that has received comparatively little sustained interdisciplinary dialogue: what does photographic practice itself contribute to thinking? How does it shape what research can know? If making photographs is itself a form of inquiry, what kinds of knowledge does it make possible? What can photographic practice reveal, explore, or think through that may be difficult to access through interviews, observation, text, or other qualitative approaches? This workshop asks not only how photography is used in research, but what photography makes knowable.
Bringing together researchers, artists, curators, and creative practitioners from across the arts, humanities, and social sciences, the workshop invites contributions that critically examine photography as a way of knowing. We are particularly interested in papers that reflect on how photographic practice shapes research questions, generates understanding, and expands the possibilities of research across disciplinary boundaries.
Potential themes include, but are not limited to:
- Photography as inquiry and research practice
- Practice-based, practice-led, and artistic research
- Materiality, making, and image-making as research
- Embodied, sensory, affective, and relational inquiry
- Ethics, participation, collaboration, and co-creation
- Place, landscape, environment, and spatial inquiry
- Urban experience and place-based research
- Identity, selfhood, gender, and sexuality
- Memory, archives, heritage, and historical inquiry
- Digital image cultures and networked photographic practices
- Emerging image-making technologies, including AI and machine vision
- More-than-human and multispecies research
- Photography beyond the Global North
- Decolonising photographic knowledge and research practices
- Curation, exhibition, and public engagement as research
- Photography in dialogue with moving image, sound, performance, installation, and other creative practices
- Critical reflections on the possibilities and limitations of photography as inquiry
To present at the workshop, please submit a title, abstract (max. 300 words), biography (max. 150 words), and contact details by the end of Friday 4 September 2026 to j.m.post@stir.ac.uk, using the subject line: “Knowing Through Photography: Rethinking Photographic Practice in Research”. Presentations and papers should be original and not previously published, with declaration of any AI use. Abstracts should clearly indicate the paper’s contribution, methodology, and the stage of the work. Authors of selected abstracts will be notified shortly after the submission deadline. The workshop will include open remarks from Anthony Luvera, the Director of Education at the Royal Photographic Society and a trustee of the photography and film charity, Four Corners. An internationally recognised photographer, writer, and educator, his work explores photography as a socially engaged practice focussed on representation, community, and belonging.
The workshop will be held online via Microsoft Teams. It is organised by John Post, Neil Crawford and Emma McCombie of the University of Stirling, UK. John Post is a Research Associate in the Faculty of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences. He holds a PhD in Art and Design from the Belfast School of Art, Ulster University, specialising in practice-led photographic research with a focus on queer visual culture, empathy, and digital intimacies. Neil Crawford is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in International Politics and Public Policy in the School of Law, Politics and Social Sciences, specialising in climate and environmental justice, forced migration, and urbanism. Emma McCombie is the Deputy Head of University Collections, where she is in charge of the public programme, learning and teaching and outreach. The Art Collection has been named a Collection of National Significance by Museums Galleries Scotland.
Participation is free and open to researchers, artists, practitioners, policy-makers, and postgraduate students. Following the workshop, presenters will be invited to contribute to a proposed edited collection, with the editorial team working with authors to develop selected papers for publication.
For further information, or to discuss a potential submission, please contact Dr Post at: j.m.post@stir.ac.uk
