Season One Roundtable Discussion

The By/For: Photography & Democracy initiative began with the aim of expanding conventional understandings of the relationship between photography and democracy. Photography has often been framed as a democratic tool, but it has equally been critiqued as a mechanism of control. We sought to move beyond this binary and instead ask: how does photography function in relation to democracy, and in what ways does the medium shape our ideas of and approaches to democratic citizenship or participation?

This question guided our invitation to six leading scholars—Shawn Michelle Smith, Brenna Wynn Greer, Thy Phu, Darren Newbury, Ileana L. Selejan, and Patricia Hayes—each of whom examined this theme through the lens of their research. For our inaugural 2024/25 program, we presented a six-part series of virtual lectures accompanied by selected readings recommended by the speakers.

To conclude the series, we reconvened all six scholars for a reflective discussion on the questions and tensions that emerged during the inaugural program. The edited transcript of that conversation, held on May 30, 2025, appears below.