Conference: Reimagining One’s Own

Ethnographic Photography in Nineteenth- and Early-Twentieth-Century Europe

The photo collection of the Volkskundemuseum Wien was established along the lines of a “comparative ethnology of Europe” in the late nineteenth century, focusing on the territories of the Habsburg Monarchy. Today, the assembled materials raise manifold questions about their origins and, as a consequence, about the visual ethnography of “one’s own”.

Day 2, 2. December 2021, 9.00 to 19.00
9.00 Key Note
Looking Home. Ethnography, Photography and the Display of Italian Cultures
Agnese Ghezzi, IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca
10.30 Coffee Break
11.00 Panel I: Ethnographic Photography in Europe as Epistemic Object
Input I
Making Knowledge in the Field. Ethnographic Practices in the Hutsul Region
Martin Rohde, Martin-Luther-University, Halle-Wittenberg
Input II
Between Realism, Kitsch and Faireality. Imagining Hutsuls in Art and Culture
Bohdan Shumylovych, Center for Urban History, Lviv
Input III
Women as Pioneers of Visual Ethnography. With Camera and Pen to a New Method of Scientific Documentation
Ulrich Hägele, Eberhard-Karls-University, Tübingen
Discussion
Moderation: Magdalena Puchberger, Volkskundemuseum Wien, Vienna
13.00 Lunch Break
14.00 Panel II: Infrastructure and the Circulation of Images
Input I
Searching for Russia‘s Own Orient. Public Debates on Ethnographic Photography in Tsarist Russia and Early Soviet Union
Helena Holzberger, Ludwigs-Maximilians-University, Munich
Input II
One Image, Many Images. The Biography of a Habsburgian Type Photograph
Herbert Justnik, Volkskundemuseum Wien, Vienna
Input III
Europe in Pictures at the Musée de l’Homme. Circulating Photographs, Collecting Types
Anaïs Mauuarin, CNRS-Centre Alexandre Koyré, Paris
Discussion
Moderation: Friedrich Tietjen, freelance historian and curator
16.00 Coffee Break and Change of Location
17.30 Exhibition Tour
Überleben im Bild. Wege aus der Anonymität anthropologischer “Typenfotografien” in der Sammlung Emma und Felix von Luschan
Katarina Matiasek, Photoinstitut Bonartes, Vienna
Location: Photoinstitut Bonartes, Seilerstätte 22, 1010 Vienna
18.00 Get together