Dr. Welch’s “Perphoto” in Lisbon
A few weeks ago, Dr. Welch, professor of Modern Art, attended a cross-cultural conference, Perphoto, in Lisbon, Portugal. The four-day conference brought together a global community focused on photography and performance and how they work together. Performance artists, photographers, and scholars attended, all with diverse backgrounds and range of knowledge. Despite some overarching similarities and recurring ideas, each person in attendance brought a different perspective, making it a valuable experience. Welch noted how she came across some scholars interested in the same critics and photographers as she was, except they had a different reading of the same content – a similar understanding yet different applications. By having thoughtful discussions and exchanges with one another, the conference challenged everyone to rethink and reevaluate some of their prior ideas and understandings surrounding photography and performance. Welch discussed how it was both challenging and exciting and describes her overall experience as “energizing” and “serendipitous.” She left the conference with new connections and is already beginning a project with a fellow scholar based in Italy that she met at the conference.
As fellow art history majors and I progress into the next stages of our research projects, it was especially interesting and relevant to hear about how a research conference was conducted on a large scale. Having just presented our thesis topic proposals last week, we were able to get feedback from the faculty, all experienced scholars in their respective fields, which will help us to advance our work. Each of us is working on an individual project and none of us are studying the same works, but the opportunity to bounce off each other’s ideas and gain insight into one another’s processes has been very helpful. From peer reviews, discussions, and external readers, the Principles of Research course mimics how scholarly research is conducted, which is helpful for any of us who decide to continue in the field post-grad. Although the course is challenging and time-consuming, it promises to yield results including a better understanding of our research, just like Dr. Welch’s conference did for her and the scholars there.
Posted by Sara Junkins ’23
