Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the visual economy of the Christchurch earthquake of 22nd February 2011.

Paper long abstract:

On 4th September 2010, a series of powerful earthquakes began in New Zealand's second largest city of Christchurch. At 12.51pm on 22nd February 2011, one of these seismic events ripped through the central and eastern city, killing 185 people, and causing massive damage to the built environment. In the immediate aftermath of the February earthquake, the New Zealand government declared a state of emergency, and deployed both the New Zealand Defence Force, and urban search and rescue teams flown in from all over the world.

Based on participant-observation carried out through the disaster period, this paper argues that one unforeseen outcome of the state of emergency was to confer upon the authorities a high degree of control over what images could be taken of the main disaster sites, both by private citizens, and by media professionals. The paper examines how and why this level of control emerged, and the effect that it had in producing a remarkably well defined set of visual narratives about the February earthquake and its aftermaths.

However, drawing on Azoulay's insights into statecraft, photography and citizenship in disaster contexts, the paper also goes on to show just how unstable these 'official' constructs of the event were. In particular, it shows how these narratives were constantly undermined by ordinary citizens' production of, and their circulation of, alternative forms of vernacular photographs, which served to challenge both the iconography of, the elisions of, and - most importantly of all - the temporality of, the 'official line'.