Other People’s Stories: Bringing Public-Generated Photography into the Contemporary Art Museum

摘要

Constituting the 'defining other' of art photography, amateur photographicpractices have long been neglected or specifically excluded from official historiesof photography. Even the term 'amateur' has historically been characterized bysemantic ambiguity. In recent years, however, contemporary amateur photographshave been capturing the art curatorial imagination. This is often motivated by theinstitutional and political impetus to engage with personal, local stories, ratherthan official, national narratives alone. Amateur photographs, with their apparentrawness and immediacy may afford the art museum with a more credible recordof 'real life' and enable the display of polyvocal narratives. Furthermore, thechanging digital media landscape has opened up opportunities for art museumsto reach new audiences through public-contributed content. In response to thesedevelopments, this article asks: How has amateur photography acquired aprotagonist role in contemporary art museum displays. Drawing on contrastingcase studies of exhibitions in the US and Europe, which have incorporated user-contributed photographic content in their displays, this article discusses howeveryday photographic creativity and the raw materials of people's stories serveas a means to interact with institutionally constructed histories of photography