Associate Professor of Photography Tristan Cai is the current Steven Muller Distinguished Professor of the Arts. On Tuesday, May 5, at 2pm in Cole Cinema, Cai will speak about some of his current work in this artist talk, Photography’s imprint and the ghosts of our archives.
Photography has long been the primary architect of our collective memory, yet it is a medium built on the seductive power of illusion. In this lecture, Tristan Cai explores the imprints of the medium and the "ghosts" that inhabit our archives, including the silenced narratives and colonial erasures that linger beneath the surface of the image. By deconstructing the medium through digital intervention and archival appropriation, Cai peels back the layers of photographic "truth" to reveal the ideologies that haunt our history. His artistic explorations reflect on the persistent and spectral presence of the medium from its invention to our current digital epoch.
The lecture will be followed by a reception in Aldom Lounge where Prof. Cai’s artworks will also be on view.