Informace o publikaci
In women’s hands : the gendered dimensions of social photography in Central Europe, 1928–1948
| Autoři | |
|---|---|
| Rok publikování | 2025 |
| Druh | Další prezentace na konferencích |
| Fakulta / Pracoviště MU | |
| Citace | |
| Popis | So-called social photography became a widely circulating feature of leftist political activism in 1920s and 30s Central Europe, continuing throughout the political changes after the Second World War. Politically active women photographers such as Irena Blühová, Barbora Zsigismondová, and Judit Kárász were prolific contributors to associated movements such as Sociofoto, Sárlo and the Szeged circle. Yet, their contributions have never been assessed in light of the wider sociographic and party-political dimensions their reportages were connected to, primarily because analyses of social documentary photography have predominantly focused on male experiences of activism in the region. Focusing on the broader networks that Blühová and Kárász forged through social photography clubs, connections to publishing agencies and bookstores, my presentation traces their photographic work as part of the entangled activist networks of interwar Czechoslovakia and Hungary. It argues that their activities led to a collective practice, which paired artistic experimentation with social commitment and shaped a socially engaged, modernist photography that developed transnationally and built on the close collaboration among women photographers in Central Europe, as well as contact with their colleagues in cities such as Berlin, Dessau and Paris. The paper reveals alternative networks and dynamics of avant-garde practice shaped by the opportunities and limitations that the photographers at its centre faced based on their gender and their leftist political convictions. Ultimately, it argues that a focus on social photography’s women protagonists brings to light new perspectives on the interplay between art and social engagement and shifts focus on artistic practices that were strongly shaped by women’s interdisciplinary approaches to the medium of photography. |
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