Centennial Event
Art in Dialogue: Daguerreotypes to Deep Fakes with Susan Morelock
October 28, 2025 5:30PM to 7:00PM
Dubois Gallery, Maginnes Hall, 9 West Packer Avenue, Bethlehem
This presentation explores how photography, a medium often associated with notions of truth, has always been a powerful tool for manipulation and illusion. Starting with the medium’s inception and ending in today’s headlines, we will trace social, cultural, political, and artistic contexts for image deception. Alongside selections from PastFORWARD - Photography: Intentions & Techniques, we will examine 19th-century spirit photography, staged political propaganda, beauty retouching, viral social posts, and much more. Attendees will gain a critical and nuanced understanding of photography’s complex relationship with truth and deception.
Space is limited to 25 participants. Advance registration is encouraged.
About the Artist:
Susan Morelock is an artist and educator whose engagement with photography, video, and writing begins with what the world presents, then uses beauty and theory to coax the mundane toward metaphor. She holds her BFA in photography from Rochester Institute of Technology, her MA in visual and critical studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and her MFA from Columbia University. Her work has been widely exhibited in venues across the United States as well internationally, including locations in Italy, Japan, England, and China.
www.susanmorelock.com
@susanmorelock
Art in Dialogue is a series of interdisciplinary conversations between members of the university and the wider community - reflecting the ways in which their work is dynamically engaged with other fields of inquiry.
Image: Walker Evans (American 1903-1975). Bethlehem Graveyard and Steel Mill. Pennsylvania (From Saint Michael's Cemetery), 1935 (Printed 1982 LCR). Gelatin silver print from nitrate negative. Library of Congress print. Ralph L. Wilson Endowment Purchase. LUF 82 1037.
