The collaborative project “Foto-Objekte” (funded by the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung 2015-2018) was dedicated to photographic and archival practices in the academic disciplines of archaeology, ethnology, and art history. After its culmination in the exhibition “Unboxing Photographs: Working in the Photo Archive” (Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz, 2018), it took two more years to complete its last output, a book now published by Kerber Verlag and designed by Heike Grebin and Andreas Trogisch (Troppo Design).
While the project was focused on the biographies and itineraries of photographic objects in scholarly archives, this online event will focus on the biography of the book itself: it is not only a text with images, but rather an autonomous object that acts and interacts in different ecosystems, among them the photo archives and the reference libraries of the four partner institutions: the Photothek of the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max Planck Institute, the Kunstbibliothek and the Antikensammlung, both Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz, and the Institut für Europäische Ethnologie, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.
The primary challenge of the book was to convey on printed paper photographic and archival materiality. The volume reflects the dynamics of the four collections as well as the interactions between the authors, designers, and artists who participated in the project. Research is an open process that does not end with the duration oaf a given project. Similarly, this book is not a final product, but rather represents a momentary status quo. The production of the book was an integral part of the research process. With its sophisticated design this publication – by definition belonging to the category of multiple originals – replicates the tensions between uniqueness and reproducibility that characterize discussions about photographs and archives.
Online event via Zoom, Wednesday 16 December 2020, 5:00pm
Open to the public after free registration here: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0rd-CgqDojG9L20D5Efj4jk7cH8lFsWhPY