Susan Close

Dr. Susan Close is Associate Dean (Academic) at the Faculty of Architecture and a Senior Fellow at St. John’s College, both at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada. Close’s book Framing Identity: Social Practice of Photography in Canada (1880-1920) addressed how Canadian women at the turn of the twentieth century used photography as a social practice to establish identity. Her current teaching includes interdisciplinary courses about design history, theory and photography. She has presented at art history, history and design conferences nationally and internationally. Close is also a photographer with work in both national and international collections. She is currently working on a manuscript on the intersection of photography and the built environment. This study contains three central themes: ‘Histories and Narratives,’ ‘De-categorizing and Metaphor’ and ‘Issues and Agency.’ Each section provides a close reading informed by a cultural analysis perspective of photographs concerning concepts that include placemaking, mise -en -scene, narrative, settlement and surveillance as well as issues such as photographic social activism and its relationship to the built environment.