Critical Fabulation and Anonymity in the Weltmuseum Wien’s Photography Collection

Workshop and Showcase of Research Results | In englischer Sprache
Teil der Reihe: Perspektiven im Dialog

A collaboration project between Central European University CEU & Weltmuseum Wien

The label ‘Photographer Unknown’ is a ubiquitous fixture of the museum experience. To the visitor, it may provoke a sense of mystery, a pang of disappointment, or perhaps simple indifference. Yet, within photography collections, the unknown in the record is not a mere accident of history – it is a reflection of power.

Institutional legacies are rarely as exhaustive as their encyclopedic scope suggests. Often, a collection is defined as much by who it excludes as by what it contains. Of the Weltmuseum Wien’s vast photography collection, approximately 75,000 photographs are tagged as the work of an ‘unknown photographer’. This anonymity does more than hide a name. It obscures the context of the image, the relationship between the lens and the subject, and the museum’s original motivations for the acquisition.

In a unique collaboration between the Central European University (CEU) and the Weltmuseum Wien, students have spent months interrogating these ‘impossible stories’. Guided by Hanin Hannouch (WMW) and Klára Trencsényi (CEU), the seminar utilized Saidiya Hartman’s method of critical fabulation – using speculative narration and storytelling to rebalance historical silences while simultaneously acknowledging the impossibility of ever truly reclaiming what has been lost.

We invite the public to a workshop and showcase that serves as both a conclusion to this research and an expansion of the conversation. Students will present their findings through a diverse array of innovative audio-visual formats, including: Zines and photo albums, computer games, video essays, digital installations, etc.

This event sets student research in direct dialogue with invited artists and visual practitioners. By bridging the gap between institutional critique and creative practice, the workshop creates a space for knowledge transfer between established experts and the next generation of researchers.

Join us to explore the vibrant, speculative futures emerging out of anonymity.

Program

10:00-10:15 Introduction and Course Presentation

10:15-11:00 Critical Fabulation about Historical Photographs through Analog and Digital Media 1 Student Project Presentations and Q&A

• Aj xíinbal (video game, est. playtime 10 min) by Marlene Galaz and Klara Maass
• Chinesischer Tempel, Singapore (zine, 24 pages) by Tasha Stein
• Those Who Dream, See the Hidden History (video, 08:50) by Elene Kajaia
• Disrupting Certainty: Labels of the Weltmuseum Wien (website/multimedia) by Eva Kiser & Sarah Kovacic

11:00-12:00 Gewächshaus is a network from and for BiPOC filmmakers in the German-speaking context, centered on community building and accessible formats of exchange and learning. Through workshops, discourse, and collaborative structures, it promotes community-based knowledge production and self-determined storytelling while addressing structural barriers within the film industry:

• Tayla Myree: Intervening Silenced Histories
• Melanie Sien Min Lyn: A Simulated Life is as Real as it Get: Autofiction and the Diasporic Image
• Mara Chavez:From Archive to Terrain: Speculative Methods for Re-sensing Colonial Monuments
• Maeva Ranaivojaona: Pfeifferia: From Absence to Island

12:00-12:20 Coffee Break & Showcase of Students’ Analog Projects

12:20-12:50 Critical Fabulation about Historical Photographs through Analog and Digital Media 2 / Student Project Presentations and Q&A

• Silvio (video, 04:30) by Cemre Altin
• The Book of Oil: A Traveller’s Guide (textile zine, 15 pages) by Giunel Mamedova & Astghik Aslanyan
• Next stop: Vienna (zine, 27 pages) by Lili Katai
• Unfabulating Tsovatush (website/multimedia, 12 webpages) by Mariam Patsatsia
• The Gadje Curse (video, 07:30) by Anca Birnoiu

12:50-13:15 Materiality, Artistic Practices, and Working with Collections Robert Vanis

13:15- 13:50 Coffee Break & Working Groups/ Parallel sessions:
Focus group by Dino Rekanović
Focus group by Robert Vanis
* Focus group by Gewächshaus

13:50-14:00 Conclusions of the Workshop and the Course with Hanin Hannouch and Klára Trencsényi

The event takes place as part of the Critical Fabulation and Anonymity course – a collaboration project between Central European UniversityCEU & Weltmuseum Wien organized by:
Hanin Hannouch, Curator for Analog and Digital Media (Photography, Film, and Sound Collections), Weltmuseum Wien (Hanin.Hannouch@weltmuseumwien.at)
Klára Trencsényi, documentary filmmaker, Visiting Professor of Practice CEU, VSP (TrencsenyiK@ceu.edu)

Student Projects
Elene Kajaia
Eva Kiser & Sarah Kovacic
Marlene Galaz & Klara Maass
Cemre Altin
Giunel Mamedova & Astghik Aslanyan
Lili Katai
Anca Birnoiu
Anna Lavalley
Mariam Patsatsia
Tasha Stein

Invited experts
Gewächshaus Network: Melanie Sien Min Lyn, Mara Chavez, Tayla Myree, Maeva Ranaivojaona
Dino Rekanovic
Robert Vanis: Artist and Photographer based in Vienna, lecturer at the Academy of Arts Vienna, co-founder of MATERIAL MATTERS