Elahe Helbig

http://www.unige.ch/lettres/meslo/arabe/enseignants/ELAHEHELBIG.html

Elahe Helbig graduated from the University of Bonn in Media Studies, Art History and Islamic Studies, with a focus on the interrelations between art and media, in 2008. Her research is devoted to the Historiography of Iranian photography within the ongoing processes of modernization and cultural changes during the second half of 19th century. Immediately upon the introduction of the daguerreotype to Persia in 1842, Iranians themselves developed a profound affection for the medium photography and its multifold applications, thus, in contrast to many other Non-Western countries, domestically determining the meaning and function of photography. Thereby photography, as a widespread visual medium with societal and political relevance, advanced itself to an agent of modernization and constructor of national identity towards the turn of the century.

Consequently, her dissertation project examines the significance of photography in the re-formulation of visual languages and the construction of new visualization concepts during this highly transformative period. More specifically, it addresses the transitions in modes of visual expression induced by photography that succeeded a period of cultural exchange, albeit asymmetrically characterized, by means of juxtaposing Western photographic representation concepts in opposition to Persian pictorial traditions. Further, it attempts to locate notions of 'image' and its conceptual uptake within a framework of shifting socio-political hegemonies. Her doctoral research is based on extensive research in photographic archives both, inside and outside of Iran, and in particular on a comparative analysis of carefully selected, mostly unpublished photographs taken by Abdullah Mirza Qajar (1848/49-1909).

Sub project A
From Modernization to Globalization: The contribution of the Visual Arts to the creation of a 'New Middle East'