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Istanbul Modern brought together curators from New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art and Paris-based LE BAL to discuss photography's changing role in museums, visual literacy and the growing exhaustion caused by constant exposure to images.
The seventh session of the museum's "Panorama Talks" series featured Oluremi C. Onabanjo, photography curator at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met), and Diane Dufour, founder and co-director of the independent arts institution LE BAL.
Held as part of the exhibition "Panorama: Dreams and Places," the discussion was moderated by Demet Yildiz Dincer, Istanbul Modern's photography department director and curator.
Drawing on her experience at The Walther Collection, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and The Met, Onabanjo examined how institutional approaches to photography have evolved.
She explained that her early projects exploring African photographic history and local practices in China and Japan had encouraged her to broaden the field's boundaries, while her subsequent work at MoMA sought to challenge established narratives in art history.
Referring to an exhibition featuring African American photographer Ming Smith, organized through a collaboration between MoMA and the Studio Museum in Harlem, Onabanjo described how the curatorial team moved away from the impersonal voice traditionally used in museum labels, instead highlighting the artist's own accounts and connections to jazz.
She also argued that collecting photographs should involve considering their future visibility and social significance rather than simply acquiring works that fit an institution's mission.
Onabanjo emphasized that museums must consider how often their collections are displayed and how photographs engage with society before, during and after exhibitions, particularly as institutions confront questions they largely overlooked a decade ago.
Dufour, who established LE BAL in 2010 after serving as European director of Magnum Photos, discussed the research freedom that comes with operating independently of a permanent collection.
The nonprofit institution, established in a former Parisian ballroom, dedicates approximately two-thirds of its budget and personnel resources to developing visual literacy among children and young people.
Dufour also highlighted an exhibition exploring lesser-known photographic and video works by artists associated with Arte Povera, an Italian art movement that emerged in the 1960s.
Addressing photography's relationship with truth, she argued that an image cannot independently serve as evidence without supporting text, documentation or a visual methodology.
Comparing photography to literature, Dufour maintained that meaningful photographic work requires a distinctive visual language capable of carrying its subject.
During the question-and-answer session, Dincer asked the speakers to identify the most urgent issues facing contemporary photography.
Dufour pointed to the overwhelming volume of images produced and consumed in the digital age, arguing that meaningful photography depends on bringing form and content together.
"We are all suffering from photography fatigue. We are exhausted from constantly seeing images because we are overwhelmed by everyone's shared loneliness," she said.
She added that beauty comes not simply from attractive photographs but from the intelligence behind the relationship between visual form and meaning.
Onabanjo, meanwhile, urged contemporary image-makers to pay attention to context as well as the possibilities offered by their materials.
She emphasized that artistic mastery and resilience should also be recognized among independent creators working under pressure and across borders, rather than being sought exclusively within major cultural institutions.
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