Oikography

Whether one is in front of the camera or behind it, inside their home or outside their house, photographs have proven indispensable in probing into the idea of home. In a time when displacement, migration, and homelessness have become commonplace due to geopolitical conflicts and oppressive ideologies, the role of photography in exploring the process of homemaking has become an irrefutable fact of sociopolitical debates. With that in mind, how can a representational medium deal with home as something that is not necessarily limited to the photographic frame? In other words, can photography embody the emotional and interpersonal aspects of home as well as participate in the social, political, and cultural debates on homemaking?

Echoing the word photography, which is a compound of phōtós (light) and graphé (writing/drawing), this book defines “oikography” (oikos + graphé) as “homemaking through photography”. Following the same logic, it considers “oikographs” as photographs whose principal function is twofold: reflecting on the idea of home and dwelling on the process of homemaking. With the concept of home at its methodological and theoretical core, Oikography aims to show how photography envisages, embodies and apperceives home as a spatial idea, regardless of whether that space is idealized or ideologized, ontologized or theorized, materialized or dematerialized, territorialized or deterritorialized, or internalized within us or externalized around us. To this end, Oikography asks: How can photography represent the lived, perceived, and conceived experiences of homemaking?

Ali Shobeiri is Assistant Professor of Photography and Visual Culture at Leiden University (NL). His recent books are ‘Virtual Photography’ (co-edited 2024), ‘Psychosomatic Imagery’ (co-edited 2023), ‘Place: Towards a Geophilosophy of Photography’ (monograph 2021), and ‘Animation and Memory’ (co-edited 2020).

Helen Westgeest is Associate Professor of Contemporary Art History and Photography Theory at Leiden University. Her recent books are ‘Skin Color and Whiteness in Contemporary Art’ (2025), ‘Slow Painting’ (2020), ‘Video Art Theory’ (2016), ‘Photography Theory in Historical Perspective’ (co-authored 2011).