BOSTON, MA.- What accounts for the longevity and persuasiveness of photographic representations? Why do we continue to hold on to them? What grants them their power? The variety of photographic practices that have appeared over the last two centuries presents a daunting series of questions to curators and historians: How are vernacular images and objects to be organized? How are they to be interpreted and understood? What meanings does the vernacular image hold for the contemporary viewer? In emphasizing categories of photography that have been overlooked, In the Vernacular, and its related programming, will present previously unseen photographs and photographic objects in a contemporary critical context. Co-curated by Stacey McCarroll (Director & Curator of the Boston University Art Gallery), and Ross Barrett (Warren G. Adelson Curatorial Fellow in American Art in the Art History Department at Boston University), the exhibition includes approximately 160 photographs and objects made between 1850 and 1970.

Vernacular Reframed, a two-day interdisciplinary conference, will elaborate on the themes explored in the exhibition. Speakers will examine the history of vernacular photography through the following topics: approaches to the vernacular, a vernacular history of photography, vernacular pictures and practices, and vernacular collectors and collections. Vernacular Reframed will bring together the foremost historians, curators, and collectors in the field to discuss the questions provoked by vernacular images. With this project, the Boston University Art Gallery is in the unique position of being on the forefront of vernacular photography studies, and we are thrilled at the prospect of contributing something new to the scholarship.