Photography in the production of narratives: between the verbal and the non-verbal, between the visible and the non-visible

Abstract

The aim of this article is to understand the place that photography has occupied in the production of memories and narratives today. To do so, it starts from a relationship between research on photography developed in the Brazilian Social Sciences and more recent research on memory and narrative. The different media (paper and screens), the forms of archiving and circulation used in both private and institutional contexts, as well as class and gender differences are also of fundamental importance for understanding the use of photography as an essential part of the construction of memories and narratives, whether individual or collective. Starting from the articulation between the verbal and the non-verbal, between the visible and the non-visible, it analyses the forms of use and cultural transmission of photography, the strategies used for its selection, archiving and disposal and, with this, the different demands surrounding photographic production and recording, as well as the celebratory spaces used to legitimate the work of photographers: museums, galleries, publishers, awards, and the forms of exhibition made possible by the internet. Between the private and collective uses of photography, the most distinct "places of memory" are articulated and, consequently, the most diverse disputes around a "narrative" applied to the photographic image.