Pedagogies of Presence: Archiving Philadelphia on Film

This two-day conference highlights the visual documentary interventions of Sol Worth and Harvey Finkle in Philadelphia during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.

October 22, 5:30-7:30 pm
WEDNESDAY RSVP

October 23, 10:00 am –5:00 pm
THURSDAY RSVP 

What does it mean to document, in real time, particular moments in the life of a city? What can we learn today from the ways artists, activists, and young people framed their concerns, their hopes, and their everyday lives during a period of profound change? Pedagogies of Presence highlights the visual documentary interventions of Sol Worth and Harvey Finkle in Philadelphia during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, a time when the upheaval of the Vietnam War, the displacement of urban communities, and the intensifying struggles for housing and welfare rights reshaped the city’s social landscape.

Sol Worth is best known for the 1966 project “Navajo Film Themselves,” conducted with the anthropologist John Adair. The project and the resulting book, Through Navajo Eyes (1972), were widely, if controversially, regarded as groundbreaking contributions to visual anthropology. This project was embedded in the broader context of film and communication research and teaching at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication, where Worth directed the Documentary Film Lab.

During this same moment, social worker Harvey Finkle began using his camera to document the everyday lives of people in the city. Educated at Penn, Finkle became a lifelong advocate for social justice in Philadelphia, and he continues to engage with and document the struggles for justice throughout the city.

While participatory visual methodologies like video elicitation and photo-voice are now commonplace across humanities and social research, they were revolutionary during Worth and Finkle’s era. Worth’s insistence on democratizing representation was part of a profound, and continuing, epistemological shift in the academy. This conference will introduce participants to the archives developed from Worth and Finkle’s projects while examining the broader landscape of participatory visual media in Philadelphia.

Featured image: Frank Ross, Sol Worth working at a film projector with Barry Hemp [photograph] (1966) (UPT 50 W933, University of Pennsylvania Archives)