A brief survey of the history of protest photography, from the 1840s to the present day. How has the protest photograph circulated, and in what form? When has it been most resonant? Within this history, the Japanese experience of protest photography during the 1960s is a notable example.
Protest Photography – Past and Present
Talk by Duncan Forbes
Duncan Forbes
Duncan Forbes is the Head of Photography at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. He previously worked at the National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh; Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland; and the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles. He has exhibited and published widely on questions relating to political modernism in photography, including Edith Tudor-Hart: In the Shadow of Tyranny (Hatje Cantz, 2013) and Provoke: Between Protest and Performance (Steidl, 2016). His latest book is Renegade: Photography in the Life of Lisette Model (MACK, 2025)