Artists on Photography. Open call for a collaboration between art and science

Münchner Stadtmuseum – Awarding Institution

Founded in 1888, Münchner Stadtmuseum is Germany’s largest municipal museum. The Photography Museum (today the Photography Collection) was established in 1963 as an independent specialist museum and Germany’s first museum dedicated solely to photography. Today, it is one of the leading institutions for photography in Europe, with holdings of over three million items including almost one million photographs. Its collection ranges from the dawn of photography in the 1840s to the present digital era, with a focus on the nineteenth century as well as the period up to and including the 1980s. A robust acquisitions program for contemporary works means that the collection holdings are steadily being expanded. Beyond photographic images, the collection also comprises roughly forty archives, gifts and bequests, and special collections and an exceptional range of technical photography equipment. The collection’s unique specialized library is a trailblazer in Germany, with 25,000 volumes including books, rare volumes, and periodicals supplementing the aforementioned holdings.

From January 2024 until approximately June 2031, Münchner Stadtmuseum will undergo a €270 million comprehensive renovation in order to address urgent architectural, user, and museum needs and to become fit for the future.

A New Project Led by the Photography Collection

Artists on Photography is a new initiative by the Photography Collection which seeks to enhance its historical holdings by introducing current perspectives from artists and academics beneath others in the fields of gender theory and postcolonialism. This fellowship will be awarded annually over a period of five years commencing in 2025 to one artist and one academic, judged by an expert jury. There is no age limit. International fellows are welcome. Artists and researchers apply independently of each other and are brought together by the awarding institution.

Each year, one artist from anywhere in the world with an existing archival practice drawing on found footage and collections will receive a grant to carry out a commission. In tandem, a researcher will be invited to consider the same topic from an academic standpoint. Both will complete up to three short research visits together in Munich. The outcome will be a new work of art, a publication sharing the work created by the artist and the researcher, and an exhibition once the museum has reopened.

Topic

The cleft between the photographic objects which dominated the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and computer-generated images which have become prominent over the past three decades has been widening in a new era defined by artificial intelligence. Yet again, photography finds itself confronted with a fresh challenge. How did earlier generations view photography? How has our understanding of the medium changed with the shift from analogue to digital photography, and now with the advent of computer-generated images? Which social practices have been introduced in an era of smartphone photography, virtual reality, and AI? Which photographic objects have drifted out of focus, disappearing into depositories? What light can those objects shed on the present day and how might we rediscover them?

How to enter

Applying as an ARTIST?

Make sure to upload a concept PDF for a proposal for a new work based on the Photography Collection holdings including moods to give an impression how the work could look like; (budget, timeline-indication, project proposal for a new work based on the Photography Collection holdings including 10 moods to give an impression how the work could look like)
an existing archive-based project as a reference;
and a CV including a list of exhibitions and publications (on the profile section)

Applying as a RESEARCHER?

a published sample text of a maximum of ten pages in English or German;
one single jpg file of your choice for technical reasons
a CV including a list of publications (on the profile section);
A research statement describing their interest in this year’s focus on travel and souvenir albums.

Artist Jury

Nadine Isabelle Henrich

In its selection, its organisational structure and its classification system, each archive once again poses fundamental questions about the functions and meanings of photography, the relevance of its contexts, the role of its order, searchability and visibility.

Andrea Lissoni

Historical Photo Archives are pillars in new memories to take shape, again and forever.

Bindi Vora

The archive remains a crucial, contested, and thought-provoking space. Who remains excluded from these preserved histories?

Christoph Wiesner

Photographic archives offer the opportunity to revisit and question history with a critical perspective, while inspiring new artistic interpretations shaped by contemporary viewpoints.

Kathrin Schönegg

Photographic archives have never been neutral. In order to equip ourselves for the globalised and technologised future, we must critically activate history.

Researcher Jury

Sophie Junge

Archives store knowledge and (re)produce power structures; critically activating their content and settings means taking responsibility for the past and future of our societies.

Kathrin Schönegg

Photographic archives have never been neutral. In order to equip ourselves for the globalised and technologised future, we must critically activate history.

2025 Focus: Travel and Souvenir Albums

The Photography Collection includes more than 250 albums from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries including travel and souvenir albums from Germany, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. These holdings offer a broad overview of different photographic objects created during this period of time. These range from albums made by individuals to commercial albums where images that were taken by prominent professional photographers (e.g. Kusakabe Kimbei, Samuel Bourne, Samuel Boote), unnamed photographers, and amateurs alike could be stored. These photographs and albums reflect image practices of the past. Who in the nineteenth century was traveling to the Global South in order to take pictures? Who were their subjects, and who was purchasing these photographs and albums? How were different countries and their peoples represented? Which industrial structures underpinned photography in these different countries, or subsequently became established? What function did photography as a souvenir acquire over the nineteenth century and how did this change through more recent photographic practices and the fundamental shift to global networks? What afterlife do such images and their sometimes-brutal structures have in an era of artificial intelligence, where digital fragments of images are collaged to make new pictures? These and other questions will be addressed drawing on the holdings of the Münchner Stadtmuseum Photography Collection.

More details on these holdings for the year 2025: Travel and souvenir albums can be found on the Münchner Stadtmuseum website. For organizational reasons, it is not possible to view originals on site before the fellowships are awarded. In your application, please refer to the exemplary selection of images on the website and the specific annual theme to be worked on during the project period.

Kusakabe Kimbei, Japan (genre and landscape depictions), around 1890, hand colored albumen paper, loose sheets, Münchner Stadtmuseum, photography collection, Inv.Nr FM-2000/66
Anonymous, Japan (genre and landscape depictions), around 1890, hand colored albumen paper, album (fabric), Münchner Stadtmuseum, photography collection, Inv.Nr. FM-91/415
Anonymous, Japan (genre and landscape depictions), around 1890, hand colored albumen paper, album (linen and leather), Münchner Stadtmuseum, photography collection, Inv.Nr. FM-91/416
Anonymous, East India (portraits and landscapes), not dated, albumen paper, album (leather with gold embossing), Münchner Stadtmuseum, photography collection, Inv.Nr. 83/631
Anonymous, China (portraits), 1908, gelatine development paper, colored, album (cardboard), Münchner Stadtmuseum, photography collection, Inv.Nr. FM-73/101
Samuel Boote, Argentina (architectural views), 1889, albumen paper, from Republica Argentina, Consejo Nacional de Educacion Vistas de Escuelas Comunes (Republic of Argentina, national cultural committee, views of municipal schools), album (leather), Münchner Stadtmuseum, photography collection, Inv. Nr. FM- 83/624
Anonymous, Africa and Egypt (portraits and landscapes), not dated, gelantine development paper, album (leather), Münchner Stadtmuseum, photography collection, Inv. Nr. FM-91/368
Anonymous, Thailand (portraits and views from Bangkok), collected by an American missionary, ca. 1880-1890s, 26 albumen paper, album (leather with gold embossing and pictures), Münchner Stadtmuseum, photography collection, Inv. Nr. FM-83/622