SeminarPhotobook Block Central Europe in Photobooks (20th-21st century)

The popularity of photobooks among public museums, publishing houses, collectors and artists has been growing in recent years. But this trend has barely reached Central Europe and Poland. Photobooks by authors from the region have long being awarded and appreciated, but mostly by institutions and persons from the West, and occasionally from Russia. Yet there has been no publication or exhibition summing up this trend in its historical aspect and studying the contemporary state of the photobook culture.

The idea of the research programme, and the exhibition and publication it will culminate in, is to put together the knowledge possessed by researchers and artists in our part in Europe. The project will analyse similarities and differences, exploring the way in which photographic publications reflected the emergence of the new identity of Central European societies and young states, including various selfimages, ideologies, dreams about modernity and the future. The project will be launched in March 2018 with a seminar intended as the first meeting of photobook researchers from Central Europe. It will provide an opportunity to share reflections and observations on this subject.

Financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland as part of the Multi-annual Program NIEPODLEGŁA 2017–2022.