Multidisciplinary Approaches to Researching, Representing, and Exhibiting Photographs - Examples from Central and Southeastern Europe and Kurdish Regions

This workshop examines critical approaches to engaging with visual archives in the 21st century, emphasizing processes of reinterpretation and rediscovery. It focuses on photographic archives created across various historical periods, regions and contexts, shaped by different production histories and socio-political conditions. Through a series of case studies, the workshop will explore how photographs – be they private, un/sighted, or official – have been produced, archived, collected, used and exhibited. The focus is on the uncovering and critical engagement with existing private and public photographic archives.

With contributions by:
- Vida Bakondy (historian, Institute for Habsburg and Balkan Studies/ÖAW, Vienna)
- Radovan Cukić (curator, Museum of Yugoslavia, Belgrade)
- Elizabeth Edwards (visual and historical anthropologist, Prof. Emerita of Photographic History at De Montfort University, Leicester)
- Katarina Matiasek (curator, Photoinstitut Bonartes, Vienna)
- Susan Meiselas (artist and photographer, New York)
- Robert Pichler (historical anthropologist and photographer, Institute for Habsburg and Balkan Studies/ÖAW, Vienna)
- Maria Six-Hohenbalken (social anthropologist, Institute for Social Anthropology/ÖAW, Vienna)
- Martina Trognitz (linguist and archaeologist, Austrian Center for Digital Humanities and Cultural Heritage/ÖAW, Vienna)
- Eva Tropper (curator, Museum Joanneum, Graz)

Workshop concept:
Vida Bakondy and Maria Six-Hohenbalken

The workshop is being conducted in connection with two research projects:
VISMIG – Picturing Migrants’ Lives
ZOZAN – Investigations on Mobility through Multimedia Documentations, Art Interventions, Art-Based Research and Representations

Funding:
FWF T 1083, FWF PEEK AR 682, OeAW IHB, and OeAW ISA – in cooperation with the Studio Audio Visual Research, Department of European Ethnology/University of Vienna.

As a kick-off event, visual and historical anthropologist Elizabeth Edwards will give a public lecture on 8 April entitled Making Paths and Clearing Tracks. From ‘colonial’ photographs to historical presences and within the frame of the Balkan Studies lecture series.
Start: 18:00 | Venue: Johannessaal, ÖAW, Dr Ignaz-Seipel-Platz 2, 1010 Vienna