ABSTRACT
This chapter considers a long-standing social 'investment' in documentary photography and photojournalism their perceived value as critical tools to advocate for political and social change. It explores a current element within this larger issue, an abiding sense of anxiety regarding the 'critical potential' of 'late photography', a relatively new style of predominantly gallery-based work. Additionally, documentary's predominant styles and modes of display were seen as counterproductive to meaningful social change. The chapter argues the cross-historical comparisons encouraged by the series in part prevent it from complicating predominant Western conceptions of the African continent on a level beyond the visual. Living human subjects do feature in many of the photos and are depicted more like standard photojournalistic or documentary subjects in the latter third of the exhibition, to be discussed below in more depth.
