2026 SPE Annual Conference: Catalyst for Exchange
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print this pageUnstable Ground: Photography, Memory, and the Construction of Meaning
Nicole White
Friday, November 07 - 2:00PM to 2:30PM
Nicole White's presentation examines the instability of the photographic image and its complex relationship to memory, materiality, and cultural narrative—particularly through representations of the built landscape. As both a physical environment and a symbolic construct, the built landscape serves as a vital lens for exploring how societies inscribe values, histories, and power into space.
Through an expansive photographic practice, White investigates how photography shapes and reframes cultural memory and perception. Central to her inquiry is the photograph's enduring association with the real, and the ways in which that link can simultaneously reveal and obscure truth. By engaging with landscape as a symbolic and contested site, her work interrogates how personal and collective histories become embedded within images.
Drawing on case studies from three recent bodies of work, White traces how ideas evolve through sustained engagement with place, showing how conceptual and material choices emerge from the specific histories, emotional resonances, and spatial dynamics of each location.
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Nicole White
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