Tiffany Fairey: On visualising peace
- Author
- The Photo Ethics Podcast
- Published
- Wed 10 Sep 2025
- Episode Link
- https://www.photoethics.org/podcast/tiffany-fairey
In this episode, we talk with Tiffany Fairey about visualising peace. Tiffany warns of the dangers of binaries and hierarchies in terms of the different forms of photography as it negates the importance of different perspectives. She highlights the complexity of the politics of visibility and the ethical considerations required when marginalised groups become visible through photography. Tiffany also explains peace photography and how it can be used to depict a desired future in contexts where conflict is still present.
What you’ll find inside:
“I felt really uncomfortable I guess about this idea of who’s taking the pictures and who’s telling the story. That idea that taking photos of someone is almost like putting words into their mouth.” (7.37)
“Often in these projects a lot of the kind of benefits and the outcomes aren’t really anything to do with the image… really about facilitating something beyond the photography but also facilitating through and via photography.” (12.28)
“It’s not like peace photography is against war photography and we must have one or the other. I think there’s a danger sometimes in photography that we have to think in terms of binaries or in terms of hierarchies.” (16.06)
“The politics of visibility basically can not be straight forward when you’re working with groups that are traditionally silenced suddenly becoming visible and having their stories heard. It’s complicated as well because a lot of the times they’re not listened to, so there’s dangers of raising expectations that can’t be met through these projects. We’ve had complications around finances as well.” (22.25)
“Within peace photography that is one of the key considerations are these images to be shared or not? There shouldn’t be an assumption that these projects are always about sharing images.” (32.31)
“I think the idea of peace photography is asking us to really reassess what we think of as visually significant.” (40.17)
“A photography of peace can make visible all these elements of peace that we might not always consider.” (41.03)
What does photography ethics mean to Tiffany?
“Essentially for me ethics means accountability and transparency in how you deal with others and communicate your work. There’s always the danger that the language of ethics end up obscuring what is actually happening, we can make it more complicated than it is. I worry a lot about people talking the talk about ethical photography but we don’t always walk the walk and it’s not simple to do that. I would say it’s this idea of ethics being grounded in transparent and accountable relationships with the people that we work with.” (41.52)
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