YOUR BRAND
Dream it
YOUR BRAND Dream it
Nicole Malli (Curationist), Bettina Fabos (OPAN) and
Istvan Viràgvölgy (OPAN) presenting at Europeana 2024.
RESEARCH
OPAN members regularly give conference presentations and are actively involved with both research and scholars associated with vernacular photography, virtual reunification, platform development , open access, decolonizing the archive, and indigenous cultural heritage. Our members are also active in numerous cultural heritage-related organizations, listed below.
“What is operative in the Grassroots Archives is the commoning of photography. Drawing attention to the private and the everyday as it is enmeshed in the public and the state-controlled, the photographic commoning also redresses the imbalance in photography history.”
— Katarzyna Ruchel-Stockmans, 2024
OPAN SCHOLARSHIP
OPAN member publications
Fabos, B. (2024, October). notreHistoire.ch et Ses Partenaires Internationaux. https://notrehistoire.ch/entries/xXYq4bmkWrk
Ziku, M. and Fabos, B. (2022). Digital Community Heritage and Open Access (Report) - CC Open Culture Working Group Digital Community Heritage. [Online]. Released November 30. A shorter version with translations to Spanish, French, Traditional Chinese, Hindi, and Swahili were released on the Creative Commons Medium platform.
Campbell, I. and Fabos, B. (2021). Innovation and Ingenuity in the Fortepan Digital Photo Archive. Hungarian Studies Review 48(2): 168-182.
OPAN member presentations
Fabos, B. (2025). Why Access Matters? Open Glam Platform meeting. September.
Malli, N., Fabos, B. and Viragvolgy, I (2025). Beyond Access: Reimagining Digital Heritage Networks for the Future. Europeana 2024. Warsaw, Poland. June.
Fabos, B. (2025). Filling a Void: New Digital Preservations Initiatives Around the World to Preserve and Share Vernacular & Family Photos. SCMS-Society for Cinema and Media Studies. Chicago, IL, April.
Fabos, B., Zurcher, C., Török, A, “Filling a Void: New Digital Preservations Initiatives Around the World to Preserve and Share Vernacular and Family Photos.” iPRES Conference, Ghent, Belgium, September 17, 2024.
Fabos, B., Waller, O., Kuhlmann, L., Chatwell, M., Luhring, O., Gehle, C., “How Can We Better Display Historical Photos Online?" Midwest Archives Conference, Des Moines, IA, May 3, 2024.
Fabos, B. (2022). ‘“Digital First” Archiving and Platform Innovation: How Fortepan Disrupts the Official State Narratives by Showcasing People’s History’. Disrupting the Dominance of the Archive. London, Dec. 5-6.
Fabos, B. (2022). New Innovations and Experimentations with a Public Photo Archive: Igniting Community Engagement and Radiating the Fortepan Iowa Project Outward. Iowa Library Association, Coralville, IA. October 13.
Fabos, B. (2022), New Innovations and experimentations with the Fortepan Iowa public photo archive: igniting community engagement and spreading our work. Iowa Museum Association, October 5.
Fabos, B. (2022). Public Engagement with Local History through Archival Family Snapshots: The Fortepan Photo Archiving Approach. National Council on Public History (NCPH) Annual Conference, Montreal, May 23.
Fabos, B., Campbell, I., Vos, J., Hannahan, K., and Etringer, T. (2020). “The Fortepan Archival Concept: Collective Memory and Community Engagement through Vernacular Photographic Archiving.” Upper Midwest Digital Collections Conference, Nov. 6 [Online]: https://crosspollinate.sched.com/
ARTICLES / books we recommend
Vernacular and Street Photography
Hayden, Dolores (1995). The Power of Place: Urban Landscapes as Public History. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Ruchel-Stockmans, Katarzyna (2024). Commoning Photography. Grassroots and Community‑based Photographic Archives in Eastern Europe and the (Non)Visibility of Everyday Resistances. Formats of (Non)Seeing. Križić Roban, S., Kovač, L., Šeparović, A. & Kuhar, M. (eds.). Institute of Art History, p. 256-279 23 p.
Ruchel-Stockmans, Katarzyna (2022).,Community-based photographic archives and "potential" histories of the Cold War in Eastern Europe. In: Život umjetnosti : Journal for Modern and Contemporary Art and Architecture. 111, 2, p. 48-61 14 p.
Platforms
Cao, Leo Tiancheng (2024). Platforming digital cultural heritage: history, curation, and platform governance on Google Arts & Culture. Dissertation, University of Texas, Austin.
Pessach, G. (2008). [Networked] memory institutions: Social remembering, privatization and its discontents. Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal, 26(1), 71–149.
Virtual Reunification
Aljas, Agnes (2011). Digital Cultural Heritage – Challenging Museums, Archives and Users. Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics 3(1).
Punzalen, Ricardo (2014).Understanding Virtual Reunification. Library Quarterly: Information, Community, Policy, vol. 84, no. 3, pp. 294–323. The University of Chicago.
Punzalen, Ricardo (2014 Fall/Winter). Archival Diasporas: A Framework for Understanding the Complexities and Challenges of Dispersed Photographic Collections The American Archivist, Vol 77(2), 326-349.