Photo Oxford Symposium: Truth and Photography

Friday 31. October at 10:00 - 17:00

Sir Victor Blank Lecture Theatre, Weston Library, Broad Street, Oxford, OX1 3BG

‘Photographs, which cannot themselves explain anything, are inexhaustible invitations to deduction, speculation, and fantasy.’

Susan Sontag On Photography 1977

Photo Oxford is a biennial festival that takes a serious look at photography. Returning in October 2025, Photo Oxford’s fifth edition explores Truth and Photography. Questions about photography’s relationship to truth are as old as the medium's history. The Photo Oxford Symposium will consider photography’s relationship to truth today, from investigations into the stories missing from photographic records to photographers challenging their medium’s relationship to actuality. Join us at Oxford’s Weston Library for a day of papers and discussions with renowned artists, writers, curators and academics.

SYMPOSIUM FORMAT
10:00-10:15 Introduction and Housekeeping

10:15-11:00 1. In conversation:
Siân Davey and Garry Fabian Miller

11:00-11:45 2. Geoffrey Batchen on Surface Tension: Photography, Truth, Materiality

11:45-12:00 BREAK

12:00-12:45 3. In conversation:
Heather Agyepong and Stephen Barber

12:45-13:00 4. Short Film Screening

13:00-14:00 LUNCH

14:00-14:45 5. Diane Smyth

14:45-15:45 6. Jermaine Francis

15:45-16:00 BREAK

16:00-16:45 7. Panel: Truth, the Archive and Photography, chaired by Richard Ovenden, with Edmund Clark and Crofton Black, Olivia Arthur (TBC), and Taous Dahmani.

16:45-16:50 Closing Remarks

16:50-17:00 END

Sir Victor Blank Lecture Theatre, Weston Library, Broad Street, Oxford, OX1 3BG • Weston Library, OX1 3BG Oxford, England, United Kingdom

Google Map of Weston Library, OX1 3BG Oxford, England, United Kingdom

Megan Ringrose

07791444549

megan@meganringrose.com