Critical Fabulation and Anonymity in the Weltmuseum Wien’s Photography Collection
Workshop and Showcase of Research Results
Time: 17 April 2026, 10 a.m. – 2 p.m.
Place: WMW Forum, Weltmuseum Wien, Heldenplatz, 1010 Wien
I will be participating as an invited expert in collaboration with the Gewächaus Network to give a presentation in relation to my recent film project letters to those who were once here (2026). Learn more about the event below.
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Registration to the event is required. Please register through this link.
Full program can be found here.
The event takes place as part of the Critical Fabulation and Anonymity course – a collaboration project between CEU & Weltmuseum Wien organized by:
- Hanin Hannouch, Curator for Analog and Digital Media (Photography, Film, and Sound Collections), Weltmuseum Wien (Hanin.Hannouch@weltmuseumwien.at)
- Klára Trencsényi, documentary filmmaker, Visiting Professor of Practice CEU, VSP (TrencsenyiK@ceu.edu)
More about the event:
The label ‘Photographer Unknown’ is a ubiquitous fixture of the museum experience. To the visitor, it may provoke a sense of mystery, a pang of disappointment, or perhaps simple indifference. Yet, within photography collections, the unknown in the record is not a mere accident of history – it is a reflection of power.
Institutional legacies are rarely as exhaustive as their encyclopedic scope suggests. Often, a collection is defined as much by who it excludes as by what it contains. Of the Weltmuseum Wien’s vast photography collection, approximately 75,000 photographs are tagged as the work of an ‘unknown photographer’. This anonymity does more than hide a name. It obscures the context of the image, the relationship between the lens and the subject, and the museum’s original motivations for the acquisition.
In a unique collaboration between the Central European University (CEU) and the Weltmuseum Wien, students have spent months interrogating these ‘impossible stories’. Guided by Hanin Hannouch (WMW) and Klára Trencsényi (CEU), the seminar utilized Saidiya Hartman’s method of critical fabulation – using speculative narration and storytelling to rebalance historical silences while simultaneously acknowledging the impossibility of ever truly reclaiming what has been lost.
We invite the public to a workshop and showcase that serves as both a conclusion to this research and an expansion of the conversation. Students will present their findings through a diverse array of innovative audio-visual formats, including: Zines and photo albums, computer games, video essays, digital installations, etc.
This event sets student research in direct dialogue with invited artists and visual practitioners. By bridging the gap between institutional critique and creative practice, the workshop creates a space for knowledge transfer between established experts and the next generation of researchers.
Join us to explore the vibrant, speculative futures emerging out of anonymity. Registration through this link is required.
Student Projects:
- Chinesischer Tempel, Singapore (zine, 24 pages) by Tasha Stein.
- Those Who Dream, See the Hidden History (video, 08:50) by Elene Kajaia.
- Aj xíinbal (video game, est. playtime 10 min) by Marlene Galaz & Klara Maass.
- Silvio (video, 04:30) by Cemre Altin.
- The Book of Oil: A Traveller's Guide (textile zine, 15 pages) by Giunel Mamedova & Astghik Aslanyan.
- Disrupting Certainty: Labels of the Weltmuseum Wien (website/multimedia) by Eva Kizer & Sarah Kovacic.
- Next stop: Vienna (zine, 27 pages) by Lili Katai.
- The Gadje Curse (video, 07:30) by Anca Birnoiu.
- ZINE by Anna Lavalley.
- Unfabulating Tsovatush (website/multimedia, 12 webpages) by Mariam Patsatsia.
Invited experts:
- Gewächshaus Network: Melanie Sien Min Lyn, Mara Chavez, Tayla Myree, Maeva Ranaivojaona.
- Dino Rekanović, President of Rotlicht Festival for Analog Photography, International Curator, Gallerist and Photographic Alchemist.
- Robert Vanis, Aritst and Photographer, exploring representation and accessibility as well as materiality and transience of knowledge, co-founder of MATERIAL MATTERS.
For organizational questions, please feel free to reach out to golubeva_sasha@student.ceu.edu.