Archeology of Photography

There will be held a master class by Maciej Turczyniak on "Archivation of Photographs in Everyday Life" for museum staff, owners of photographic collections, family archives, and anyone interested. Artists and photographers are welcome to participate in the meeting with Marta Szymanska, a curator, vice-president of the "Archeology of Photography" foundation (Warsaw). She will tell about the work of artists with archives of photographs.

The process of archiving photographs is one of the most important points in preserving and studying history and visual memory. Amateur family photographs contain the unhidden traces of history in themselves. Their value increases with every year of their life. There is a good reason for artists and curators to increasingly more often resort to vernacular photography, while the topics about establishing and functioning of institutions dealing with the storage of photo archives keep revolving in the media and in private discussions.

During the meeting with Maciej Turczyniak and Marta Szymanska we shall talk about what could be done independently by every person to preserve photographs, how to work with your own collections and what artists could learn from that. The events are organized in Lviv by Odesa//Batumi Photo Days and Culture.pl, as supported by Urban Media Archive of the Center for Urban History of East Central Europe.

The master class "Archivation of Photographs in Everyday Life"

Run by Maciej Turczyniak (Warsaw, Poland)

During the master class, possible methods of work with the photo archives shall be presented, such as the issues of safe storage of photo archives, packaging methods, types of packaging, wrapping and paper for archiving. Digitalization methods – how to select a scanner, how to scan and which file formats shall be used, how to store the files.

Open meeting with Marta Szymanska

"During the meeting, I would like to ask questions about how the photo archive could be the basis for artistic creativity and artistic research. What is the role of a curator and owner of archives?" Marta will tell about the basic principles to work with photo archives in a safe way. She will share her experience of working in the "Archeology of Photography" foundation and the "Living Archive" project that engaged contemporary artists. Moreover, she will tell about her own most interesting projects related to photography and the challenges coming up during their implementation.