Photography in the Public Realm: Practices, Tools, and Reflections

This event brings together leading voices in the photographic field to explore how images in the shared environment can challenge dominant narratives and promote inclusive, participatory dialogue. Join artist Anthony Luvera, Emma Chetcuti, Director of Multistory, and Pierre Terdjman, Co-founder of Dysturb, for a public conversation chaired by curator and writer Rica Cerbarano. Part of the research project “Photography and Public Space – How We Read Images in the Shared Environment”, the event highlights artistic strategies that reclaim urban space, foster civic awareness, and invite public participation. Through socially engaged practices and street interventions, the featured projects explore the political power of images in public space, question the influence of commercial visual culture, and inspire new ways of seeing in our image-saturated world.

Programme:

Welcome

Carla Mitchell

Why Should We Look at Photographs in Public Space Now?

Rica Cerbarano

Making Public: Tactics for Socially Engaged Photography

Anthony Luvera

People, Place and Photography: From Concept to Creation

Emma Chetcuti

How to Inform in the Public Space

Pierre Terdjman

Speakers:

Rica Cerbarano is an independent curator, writer, editor and producer specialising in photography. Her curatorial research focuses on collaborative and cross-disciplinary practices and the generative role of photographic installations in the public realm. In 2024, she received two grants from the Italian Ministry of Culture to support her research on the relationship between photography and public space, with a particular focus on the connection between visual and civic education. As a writer, she contributed to FOAM, Camera Austria, Vogue Italia, Over Journal, and other prominent magazines. Since 2022, she is the co-editor of the Photography section of Il Giornale dell’Arte. Rica is also the co-founder of Kublaiklan, a curatorial collective that explores accessible ways of interacting with photography. They curated exhibitions at Images Vevey, Cortona On The Move, Gibellina PhotoRoad, Photoszene Festival, and others.

Emma Chetcuti is the Director of Multistory, a community arts company based in Sandwell in the Black Country, where the people and place shape our work. Over 20 years Emma has led Multistory with a vision to reimagine the local area, platform under-represented voices and inspire creativity and social change. The programme of co-created projects, workshops, talks and events takes place in non-arts spaces, in libraries, community centres and indoor and outdoor public places. Through the programme Multistory explores the crossover between community building, environmental and social justice and the documentation and archiving of untold and everyday stories.

www.multistory.org.uk

Anthony Luvera has been at the forefront of socially engaged photography for over twenty years. Working in concert with people who are marginalised, overly spoken for, and misrepresented, Anthony’s practice is built on dialogue, trust, participation, and co-creation. Through long-term collaborative projects, often embedded within the support services of health and social care organisations, Anthony’s work addresses issues such as homelessness, housing justice, and queer representation. His exhibitions have taken place in the public realm as often as they are seen in galleries or museums, including the UK House of Commons, Tate Liverpool, Museum of Homelessness, London Underground’s Art on the Underground, National Portrait Gallery, Belfast Exposed, Malmö Fotobiennal, Goa International Photography Festival, Oslo Negative, and Landskrona Foto Festival. His publications have been distributed freely to residents across cities and sent directly to local and national policymakers in support of efforts to campaign for improvements to public services. Anthony is Associate Professor of Photography in the Centre for Arts, Memory and Communities at Coventry University. He regularly facilitates education programmes, workshops, and lectures for institutions such as the National Portrait Gallery, Tate, Magnum, Royal Academy of Arts, The Photographers’ Gallery, Barbican Art Gallery, and community projects across the UK.

www.luvera.com

Pierre Terdjman is a French documentary photographer based in Paris, and the co- founder/director of Dysturb, a nonprofit organization committed to raising awareness of critical social issues and amplifying visual storytelling. With a background in covering conflicts and humanitarian crises for over 15 years, Dysturb’s founders launched the project to leverage their experience as photojournalists to raise awareness, foster meaningful discussions, and challenge stereotypes. Its mission is to make news accessible to a diverse audience, including individuals with limited access to information or those who have lost trust in traditional media. Dysturb equips students and the general public with tools to analyze information critically, fostering the development and application of essential critical thinking skills.

www.dysturb.org

The event “Photography in the Public Realm: Practices, Tools, and Reflections” is part of Rica Cerbarano’s research project “Photography and Public Space – How We Read Images in the Shared Environment” granted by the Italian Council program (13th edition, 2024) and promoted by the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity of the Italian Ministry of Culture, with partners including Coventry University and the International Center of Photography.

A £5 donation is kindly requested for the event.