Artist Meets Archive #2

Characteristic for Cologne as city with a great history involving photography are the numerous and high-quality photographic collections and archives. Together with five institutions, the Photoszene invited internationally active artists to work in the archives and with the treasures hidden within them in order to develop an exhibition out of their research for the festival in May 2021.

This second round of AMA is about understanding the massive ways in which photography is used, processed, archived and catalogued in different fields in order to make historiography accessible for later generations. It is also about specific questions concerning the archive as an organising and structuring institute: How do archives remain legible in the digital age? And what is not stored in these very archives?

The project deals with the specific focal points of archives in the disciplines of colonial, reproduction, dance, economic and scientific history and questions the significance of the medium of photography in these contexts.

We are delighted to work with the following five interesting archives and amazing artists!

AMA Exhibitions

AMA Program

AMA Artists & Archives

AMA #2 Talks