Wednesday, September 16, 2026 @ 8:00 pm Eastern
Elena Tibbetts – Beyond Coverage: Recording How Places Are Understood Through Visual Documentation
In the study of cultural and commercial landscapes, visual documentation is often used to record change or support interpretation. While these functions are essential, they do not fully account for what visual media can reveal. This presentation explores how photography and film can capture the way in which historic places are presented and understood in the present.
Drawing on cinematic and photographic examples, Elena Tibbetts will examine how meaning is articulated within a space, through voice, sequence, and spatial experience, and how these moments form a durable record of a site as it is experienced and interpreted. The session will consider how this type of documentation complements traditional archival records by preserving not only what a place is, but how it is explained and encountered. Through this lens, visual media becomes a way of recording the lived and interpreted condition of historic sites.