Photography and the Museum

Sandra Križić Roban, PhD, will participate in the international conference Photography and the Museum: Re-evaluating the Past, Capturing the Present, Anticipating the Future, organized by the research platform Museum Dialogues: Exhibiting, Collecting and Activating Photography. The event will take place from November 22 to 24, 2024, at the University of Sunderland, UK. Under the title “Should Dispersed Vernacular Photographic Voices be Institutionalised? Some Examples from Croatia,” Križić Roban will discuss the status of photography within the local community, where its position, previously on the margins of artistic events as well as scientific and artistic research, has recently begun to shift, increasingly occupying a central place in contemporary cultural-critical discourse.

Due to an underdeveloped critical framework and a lack of understanding of the many aspects of photography’s role at all societal levels, there has emerged a need to analyze its historical development and societal role. This is especially true for vernacular photography, understood as a type of local, everyday imagery found in various contexts, often remaining outside existing institutional models. The potential for researching vernacular photography is particularly intriguing from an Eastern European perspective, where there is a discrepancy between national and private identities. Research in this area contributes to the examination of concepts such as microhistory and the history of events (Foucault), which may transform historiography in relation to grand historical narratives. Approaching vernacular photography as material that continuously appears and activates in research and exhibition contexts, Križić Roban will address themes such as labor and the position of workers in factories, as well as their leisure time, which can be collectively described by the term vernacular modernism. The presentation will showcase examples from factory archives and factory newspapers, as well as those published in professional and specialized press. These “dispersed” photographic voices distill social practices, and due to the growing interest in these areas, they are being incorporated into curatorial projects, archived, and made part of functional digital and analog exhibitions.

Participation is financially supported by the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia, the City of Zagreb, and through the UrbArH project, which is funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU.

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Contact: Sandra Križić Roban

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