Á delightfully invites you to the talk ‘When photography is beyond documentation’ as an extension of our exposition, while also being its closing event

What happens when a photograph is no longer just evidence of an action, but a performance in itself? Who holds authorship when the artist’s body and gesture become the raw material of a staged image—the photographer, the performer, or both? How can artists and institutions balance the responsibility of archiving performance with the need to respect rights of authorship, while still ensuring its circulation and study? And if performance once arose as a critique of the permanence of the image, what does it mean for it to return today in collaboration with photography?

These questions of authorship, copyright and the conceptual intersections of photography and performance will frame the conversation ‘When Photography is Beyond Documentation,’ bringing together Trần Lương, Quỳnh Đông and Vân Đỗ, moderated by Đặng Thuỳ Anh.

The discussion is part of SHUTTERSCAPE, an exhibition that arises from the shared interest of Đặng Thuỳ Anh and Vân Đỗ in expanding the possibilities of performance practice—a key strand of Á Space’s program, where both are closely involved. Rather than positioning performance and photography as separate disciplines, the exhibition explores performative works that exist in photographic form as well as photographic works that take on a performative quality, creating an interdisciplinary dialogue that blurs genre boundaries. Alongside the exhibition, this conversation on authorship, copyright, and conceptual overlaps will take place, and artist Quỳnh Đông has been invited to contribute an essay on the relationship between performance and image. The exhibition also acknowledges the contributions of those who have recorded performances through photography—whether or not they identify as photographers—for their role in enabling performance to persist in another form.

The discussion ‘When photography is beyond documentation’, with the supports of Á Space and Vincom Center for Contemporary Art (VCCA), is part of the International Photography Biennale Photo Hanoi ’25.