Dr. Marie Meyerding

Personal details

• Research Areas

  •    Modern and Contemporary Art
  •    Theory and History of Photography
  •    Art History in a Global Context
  •    Postcolonial Theories
  •    Gender Studies

• Curriculum Vitae

  since 2026
  Head of a Junior Research Group at the Cluster of Excellence “Imaginamics: Practices and Dynamics of Social Imagination” at Friedrich Schiller University Jena

  2024-2026
  Walter Benjamin Position (funded by the German Research Foundation) for the Postdoc project “Landscapes of Surveillance: Environmental Art and the Stasi in the Global GDR” at Technical University Dresden

  2019–2023
  PhD in History of Art of Africa at Free University Berlin

  2014–2019
  Studies in Cultural Studues and Art History at Leuphana University Lüneburg, Université Rennes 2 and the Courtauld Institute of Art

• Publications

  Monographs
  
  2025
  Women and Photography in Apartheid South Africa. Part of the series “Routledge Research in Gender and Art”. London: Routledge.

  2023
  Mavis Mtandeki and Marie Meyerding. Sights of Struggle: The History of the Tambo Village Women. Eindhoven: Lecturis.
  
  Articles
  
  2025
  ‘Christa Jeitner’s Visions of Trees’, Art Margins Online, special issue on ‘The Socialist Anthropocene in the Visual Arts’. Edited by Maja and Reuben Fowkes. https://artmargins.com/christa-jeitners-visions-of-trees/External link.

  2024
  ‘Photography between Publicity and Politics: The Life and Work of South African Photographer Georgina Karvellas’. Edited by Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll, Stacey Kennedy and Azadeh Sarjoughian. Third Text 38, no. 1–2 special issue on ‘Polyphony: Voice, Method, Archive’: 207–27. https://doi.org/10.1080/09528822.2024.2336405External link.

  ‘A Woman’s Modernist Frame: Doing Justice to Constance Stuart Larrabee’s Photographs of World War II’. Edited by Christopher Nixon. kritische berichte 52, no. 2 special issue on ‘Visuelle Gerechtigkeit (Visual Justice)’: 29–38. https://doi.org/10.11588/kb.2024.2.103982External link.

  2022
  ‘“Africa’s First Woman Press Photographer”: Mabel Cetu’s Photographs in Zonk!’. African Arts 55, no. 3: 54–69. https://doi.org/10.1162/afar_a_00669External link.

  ‘Performing Gender in Video Art: Candice Breitz’s Extra’. Third Text 35, no. 5: 554–68. https://doi.org/10.1080/09528822.2021.2014771External link.

  2021
  ‘Lebohang Kganyes Ke Lefa Laka: Her-Story’. In Family Affairs. Familie in Der Aktuellen Fotografie, edited by Ingo Taubhorn and Haus der Photographie der Deichtorhallen Hamburg, 90. Heidelberg: Kehrer.

  ‘Affective Photographs: Alice Mann’s Series Domestic Bliss’. Safundi 22, no. 3: 245–61. https://doi.org/10.1080/17533171.2021.1984679External link.

   ‘Aestheticising Atrocity: George Osodi’s Series Oil Rich Niger Delta’. Critical Arts 35, no. 5–6: 129–44. https://doi.org/10.1080/02560046.2021.1987943External link.

  Other publications
  
  2025
  ‘Review of Liliana Gómez: Archive Matter. A Camera in the Laboratory of the Modern’. sehepunkte 25, no. 9. https://www.sehepunkte.de/2025/09/40153.htmlExternal link.

  ‘Book Review of Life Itself: Photography and South Africa by Simon A. Clarke’, Source Magazine: Thinking Through Photography 118 ‘Negative Space’: 74–75. 

  ‘Annemirl Bauer: Elli auf dem Pferd (1981)’, Image analysis as part of the Summer Academy for East German Art, Brandenburgische Technische Universität Cottbus- Senftenberg.

  2024
  ‘Ost-West-Verbindungen: Flucht in die Öffentlichkeit: 10. f/stop – Festival für Fotografie’. Camera Austria 167: 73–75.

  2023
  ‘The Defiance of South African Women Photographers during Apartheid.’ Interview by Stefanie Qaba Jason. Aperture.org, 25 August 2023. https://aperture.org/editorial/the-defiance- of-south-african-women-photographers-during-apartheid/.

  ‘A Picture’s Worth’. Africasacountry.com, 7 February 2023. https://africasacountry.com/2023/02/remembering-a-pictures-worthExternal link.

  2022
  ‘Review of Leena Crasemann: Unmarkierte Sichtbarkeit? Weiße Identitäten in der zeitgenössischen künstlerischen Fotografie’. sehepunkte 22, no. 10. http://www.sehepunkte.de/2022/10/37120.htmlExternal link.

  ‘59th Venice Biennale : Lebohang Kganye : Once Upon a Time’. The Eye of Photography, 2 June 2022. https://loeildelaphotographie.com/en/59th-venice-biennale-lebohang-kganye-once-upon-a-time-dv/#.
  
  2021
  ‘Review of Darren Newbury / Lorena Rizzo / Kylie Thomas (Hrsg.): Women and Photography in Africa. Creative Practices and Feminist Challenges’. sehepunkte 21, no. 1. http://www.sehepunkte.de/2021/01/34962.htmlExternal link.

• Further Activities

  Exhibition

  2026 
  ‘Defiant Visions’, apexart NYC Open Call Exhibition, curated exhibition project with accompanying programm, New York City, https://apexart.org/meyerding.phpExternal link

  Awards

  2025
  Dissertation Prize, Hedwig Hintze Women’s Advancement Award from the Department of History and Cultural Studies at Freie Universität Berlin

  2023/24
  German Photobook Award, bronze medal in the Student Project category for the book Sights of Struggle, co-edited with Mavis Mtandeki

  Conferences 

  2024
  
  Conception and implementation of the three-day writing workshop ‘Socialist Eco-Aesthetics: Networks of Art and Ecology in the “Eastern Bloc”’ with seven
  international participants selected via a call for papers and a public keynote lecture by Maja and Reuben Fokwes, TU Dresden

  Moderation at the symposium on ‘(No) Freedom of Movement – Mobility of Artists during the Cold War’, Albertinum, Dresden

  Talks

  2026
   
  ‘Soft Ecologies: Textile Environments under Socialism’, session ‘Expanding Critical Frameworks: Unraveling Devaluation and Recontextualizing the Field of Fiber Art’, College Art Association of America Annual Conference, Chicago

  2025
  
  ‘Of Fantastic Creatures and Queer Futures: The Ecofeminist Paintings of Annemirl Bauer’, workshop ‘Posthuman Ecofeminism in Art, Literature, and Aesthetics’, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn

  ‘Ecofeminist Aesthetics in the late GDR’, conference ‘Marx in the Anthropocene: Capital, Nature, Ecology, Environment’, Università Iuav di Venezia

  2024
  
  ‘Umweltkritische Industrie-, Stadt- und Landschaftsansichten im Werk von Tina
  Bara und Helga Paris’, symposium ‘Fotografie und Industriekultur’, Salinemuseum Halle

  ‘Fabricating Freedom: Textiles, Censorship and Environmental Art in the GDR’, conference ‘Objects. Between Absorption and Isolation’, Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut, Florence

  ‘Mail Art and Environmental Activism: Karla Sachse’s Subversive Practice Between State Surveillance and Official Art Production’, online workshop series ‘Women and Mail Art: Gendered Perspectives on Marginal Artistic Practices’, Universitäten Warschau und Bern 

  ‘Ecofeminist Art in the Late Global GDR’, conference ‘Gender, nature, and ecology’, University Paris 8

  ‘Rooted Resilience: Women, Censorship and Environmental Art in the Late GDR’, conference ‘GDR goes “Glocal”: Culture, Cooperation, and Conflict’, Universität Hamburg

  ‘Visions of Trees: Environmental Art and Surveillance in the Global GDR’, conference ‘The Great Transformation of Nature: Extractivism, Terraforming and Monoculturalization in Global Socialisms’, University College London

  2023
  
  ‘Art, Activism or Advertisement: The Photographs of Georgina Karvellas’, Photography Network symposium ‘Photography’s Frameworks’, University of the Western
  Cape, Cape Town

  ‘Out of Sight: Women and Photography in Apartheid South Africa’, photo-historical seminar ‘Archival Absences: An Incomplete History of Photography’, Bibliotheca Hertziana, Max Planck Institut für Kunstgeschichte, Rome

  ‘Navigating the Archive’, Photography Network’s Virtual Speaker Series

  2022
  
  ‘Missing Images: Women and Photography in Apartheid South Africa’, Namibian and Southern African Studies Research Colloquium, Universität Basel

  ‘Collective Struggle Photography’, panel on ‘Collectives, Art and Neoliberalism’, Association for Art History’s 48th Annual Conference, Goldsmiths, University of London

  2021
  
  ‘Between Affirmation and Denial. The Photographic Practice of Mavis Mtandeki and Primrose Talakumeni’, The Developing Room’s Fifth Annual Graduate Student Colloquium on the History and Theory of Photography, Rutgers University

  ‘Sichtbarkeitspolitik im Wandel. Überlegungen zu Gender und Intersektionalität in der Fotografie Südafrikas zwischen Apartheid und Demokratie’, lecture series ‘Facing Reality’, Fotofestival Nürnberg

   ‘Photography, Text, Power. Lesley Lawson’s Working Women (1985)’, 18e École de Printemps ‘Art & Text’, Reims

  2020
  
  ‘“Africa’s First Woman Press Photographer”: Mabel Cetu’, Berliner Graduierten- Symposium für moderne und zeitgenössische Kunstgeschichte ‘Ästhetik der Sichtbarkeit’, Freie Universität Berlin und Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

  The Politics of Visibility. Lesley Lawson’s Working Women’, conference ‘Cont·Act! Fotografie und Handlungsmacht’, Museum Folkwang, Essen

  ‘Aestheticizing Atrocity. George Osodi’s Series Oil Rich Niger Delta (2003-2007)’, ACASA Triennial Symposium of African Art, DePaul University and the Art Institute of
  Chicago