International talk event in Budapest, November 2, 2023
Location: Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design

Vernacular photography is the medium of the millions – an immensely flexible and expressive medium which speaks a universal language.  The current state of photographic production is often characterised in the apocalyptic terms of an avalanche, an eruption, a tsunami or a storm. This wording gives the impression of an unmanageable and unstoppable cascade of newly taken images – not to mention all the everyday or vernacular images that were created since the new image taking method called photography became common. 

These conventional, predictable, repeatable, and repeated photographs, all these stereotypical banalities, the realm of the redundant, the ordinary, and the vernacular are traditionally excluded – or downplayed – by the curatorial and historiographical approaches. Even though these images constitute the vast majority of photographs ever made or ever to be made. We are interested in exploring how ordinary people do ordinary photography. The genre of vernacular photography is popular, relatable, evokes emotions, and mobilises people.

With an international talk series, we set ourselves on a journey to explore the latest contemporary, historical, aesthetic, and scholarly thoughts on vernacular photography and its peripheries. The contemporary and historical topics selected for these talks only scar the surface of mass imaging and the individual but give a glimpse into the ongoing discourses around and about vernacular photography – from the different viewpoints of internationally recognized professionals with different disciplinary backgrounds.

Speakers: Geoffrey Batchen, Michal Simunek, The Family Museum, Lukas Birk, Judit Gellér, Miklós Tamási, Sándor Kardos, Annebella Pollen, Joanna Zylinska and Joachim Schmid

Attendance is free but registration is required to participate.
Register for the event via this link.

The event is hosted by Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design.

You can watch all presentations on Eidolon's Youtube channel & also on Eidolon Journal.
The keynote speech of the event, given by Geoffrey Batchen, is available on this link.
Watch all three presentations of the segment 'Crash course on analogue everyday photography – vernacular photography outside the realm of the digital' here. Also, the event's Hungarian-themed lectures are available on this link. The third segment titled 'Contemporary/digital everyday photography and questions of mass imaging/social photo' is available here.