Reworking the Visual Legacies of Colonial Photographic Archives With and Through the Self: A Conversation With Dzifa Peters and Nurul Huda Rashid

Abstract

This interview is a follow-up on the symposium “Visual Legacies: Colonial Photographic Archives and the Self” held at Erasmus University Rotterdam in November 2025. This symposium explored the potential of artistic practices to reimagine colonial imagery and its impact on identity formation, featuring the works of artists-researchers Dzifa Peters and Nurul Huda Rashid. The two presented their research, which critically engages with photographic legacies.
Dzifa Peters, a German-Ghanaian artist and scholar, draws on her bicultural background to reflect on colonial and diasporic contexts. Her work employs photography, photomontage, and installation to expose tensions between private and public archives, institutional frameworks, and personal narratives. She engages with both vernacular and institutional archives, reworking them through historical narratives and imaginative reinterpretations.
Nurul Huda Rashid focuses on the algorithmic circulation of images depicting Muslim women. Through annotation and workshops with Muslim women, she investigates methods to disrupt the classification and reproduction of dominant imagery, thereby advocating for alternative modes of opacity and visibility.
In the interview, Peters and Rashid discuss the influence of inherited images on self-perception and societal ways of seeing. They explore the role of artistic practice in challenging visual legacies and offer strategies to mitigate the colonial gaze and rework existing photographs to foster new meanings, care, and resistance.