Photographing systems of control: Extraordinary Rendition and bringing the DoD’s declassified documents and image archive to public view…with Edmund Clark and Crofton Black.

In this episode, I’m joined by not one but two guests, authors of Negative Publicity (2015) and the soon-to-be-published Cosmopolemos: An Illustrated Encyclopaedia of the United States Department of Defence Contract Spending from 2001 to 2021. In this wide-ranging conversation, artist and photographer Edmund Clark and investigative journalist and writer Crofton Black explain their unique approach to research, combining forensic investigations of declassified documents with photography to shed light on systems of military power and hegemonic control. Their widely exhibited and rigorously researched work is immensely thought-provoking and important, offering rare insight into a fiercely protected world.  Listeners will be able to see some of these images from Cosmopolemos and more in a collaborative exhibition with the Incite Project at Photo Oxford, running between the 25th of October and the 16th of November at Pembroke College JCR Art Gallery.  Cosmopolemos [Embedded]: Representations of American Military Power from 9/11 to the Evacuation of Kabul displays images from the Incite Project made between 9/11 and the evacuation from Kabul, including those by photojournalists embedded with the US military in Afghanistan and Iraq. Link to exhibition: https://photooxford.org/exhibitions/crofton-black-edmund-clark Ed and Crofton will also be speaking about Cosmopolemos at a symposium on 31 October at the Truth and Photography Symposium at Weston Library in Oxford: (https://photooxford.org/events/symposiumLink to Ed and Crofton’s selected images: https://sotonac-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/g/personal/ha4g21_soton_ac_uk/EYf7hg48j2tAurna9XCj7UIBCNDg2oxuhRzVtCaYOQok0A?e=K5jkXa