Sergio Valenzuela-Escobedo on AI, photography, colonial histories and the future of the photographic archive
Mänk’áčen (Revision 6) by internationally acclaimed artist, curator and researcher Sergio Valenzuela-Escobedo revisits photography’s colonial histories, questioning how the camera has shaped representation, memory and identity. Presented as part of the global bicentenary celebrations of photography, the exhibition brings together archival and contemporary material to challenge dominant narratives around the medium.
Sergio Valenzuela-Escobedo is one of the leading voices in contemporary photography research and curatorial practice. He is the Artistic Director of doubledummy, whose recent recognition at Rencontres d’Arles, one of the world’s most prestigious photography festivals, adds to his growing international profile.
As photography marks 200 years, what do you think the next 200 years could look like, especially with AI changing how images are created and understood?
AI doesn't create a new problem, it makes an old problem impossible to ignore. Photography has never been completely objective. The camera already selects, frames, excludes, transforms, and ultimately constructs a particular vision of the world. AI intensifies these questions, but it also adds a new and crucial one: who owns the data from which these images are produced? Who has the right to use images, archives, and visual cultures to generate new representations? For me, the question of whether an image is “real” is becoming less important. More important are the questions: Who made it? Why was it made? Under what conditions? What data produced it?
You see photography as more than a tool for documenting history. How did it become a force in shaping colonial history and memory?
Photography is not neutral it is political. For me, the relationship between politics and the photographic apparatus is self-evident. The camera belongs to the wider constellation of technologies of dispossession that accompanied colonial expansion. In that sense, I do not believe the camera can truly be decolonized. Today we inhabit an era of generalised self-representation that pushes the medium into new territories, but the structure remains fundamentally intact. The question is not simply who produces images, but who manufactures the conditions of visibility themselves.
Your exhibition draws parallels between India and South America, including the camera and railways as tools of colonial control. What do these parallels reveal?
My exhibition does not draw direct parallels between India and South America. Rather, it points to certain similarities and resonances that I believe deserve further research. I am interested in these unexpected connections, but I would be cautious about presenting them as established historical relationships. For me, the point is not to establish a direct connection between India and South America, but to observe in these unexpected affinities if the camera was be perceived the same way. The exhibition opens that question rather than pretending to provide a definitive answer : Who is the other? Who is the savage? Who is the modern?
If we look at the next 200 years, I hope photography will push us to become more conscious than ever on the notion of the archive. The challenge is therefore not to defend photography as a guarantee of truth, but to understand why we register.