Unfolding the Archive of the Imagination: Photographs and Videos as Critical Urban Devices

The article explores the potential of images, including both photographs and videos, in urban research, questioning how they can serve as critical tools to transcend mainstream urban knowledge and foster a critical urban perspective. Drawing on photographs and videos produced during a research activity on Chinese new towns, as well as documenting the evolution of this research in an exhibition, the article highlights the theoretical contents of visual media, uncovers the distinct roles that words, photographs, and videos play in research activities, and advocates for the recognition of a so-called archive of the imagination. This archive encompasses diverse elements, including old and new images, previous ideas and experiences, knowledge and memories, affects and emotions. The article challenges mainstream urban knowledge, contributes to the ongoing debate on morethan- textual urban research and its critical dimensions, and offers an alternative perspective on visual urban geography. It argues that engaging with the archive of the imagination can foster critical urban knowledge through visual media by exposing the non-visible and the non-material, the processual and the becoming, while exploring unexpected and hidden phenomena, as well as traces and clues of potential urban futures. Unfolding the archive of the imagination is thus suggested as key to enriching a critical understanding of the complexities of urban environments and nurturing geographical imagination.