An exhibition curated by students enrolled in Dr. Mira Xenia Schwerda’s course Revolutionary Image Regimes: Curating Middle Eastern Photographs and Prints
At the turn of the century novel social and political concepts, such as Constitutionalism, were translated into visual form. Revolutionary imagery from Qajar-era Iran and the Ottoman Empire was circulated in and beyond the Middle East, becoming part of an international image economy. The portable photographic picture postcard played a key role in this.
This exhibition features a selection of revolutionary postcards from the Middle East. These historical postcards have been acquired by Gould Library’s Special Collections based on acquisition proposals by students in Visiting Professor Dr. Mira Xenia Schwerda’s course Revolutionary Image Regimes: Curating Middle Eastern Photographs and Prints during Spring Term. Labels for four of the featured postcards were written by Rowan Babcock ’27, Quinn Brannan ’25, Gerardo Vega Diaz ’28, and Yifei Ren ’26.