Challenging Geopolitical Consciousness: Latency in the Representation of Geopolitics and Power in the Photographic Work of Ursula Schulz-Dornburg from

I will investigate the political and temporal dimensions of the work of German photographer Ursula
Schulz-Dornburg (1938), focussing on latency and its power as a political tool. Schulz-Dornburg is
a living artist, known for her mostly black-and-white conceptual photographs. She has made
series-based projects since the 1970s, with an oeuvre of architecture and landscape which spans
the past 50 years. Through her work, she has travelled to countries as diverse as Russia, Armenia,
Saudi Arabia, Burma, Kazakhstan, Iraq and Azerbaijan. In my research, her archive will function as
a model for examining images of place and their changing contexts across time. The concept of
latency, as defined in this project, draws from the German word Erwartung, from waiting, meaning
expectation, anticipation, speculation; it is underlying, yet-to-be-manifest, ever-present. By
considering what is concealed within an image - like the invisible but no less real geopolitical
borders in the background of her photographs - I will question the intersection between Schulz-
Dornburg's artistic practice and her activism. I will contrast her work with that of others who have
captured the same sites in the Middle East and Caucasus, historically and present-day. I will
explore how, as a function of latency, meaning in these images is still becoming manifest and will
continue to do so.