ABSTRACT
This paper discusses how institutions like journalism, the law and advocacy are increasingly turning to images as a unique form of evidence and a mode of information relay, institutionalising visual knowledge in the process. It then examines how this institutionalisation of visual knowledge brings to light long unresolved questions about the status of images that become more intricate when new technologies, platforms and actors enter the landscape. It argues that shaping the horizon of epistemologicaI possibilities in ways that take visual modes of knowing seriously, especially when human rights concerns are at stake, is an important ethical and social project.
