Stanislovas Žvirgždas

The subject of the report is the first Lithuanian photo albums of the 19th – early 20th century by A. Rohrbachas, A. Sveikovskis, V. Zacharcikas, J. Czechowicz, J. Bułhak and other authors (original photographs). In the end of 19th century with the invention of zincography various printed photo albums started appearing. The report will give an overview of “The Lithuanian album”, which was awarded a gold medal in Paris exhibition in 1900, as well as publications of the First World War lavishly illustrated with photographs made by Lithuanian photographers and German war correspondents, etc. Various photo albums and publications from interwar period, as well as the development of publications after the Second World War will also be briefly introduced. In the end of the report S. Žvirgždas will also briefly review the present day Lithuanian photo albums and publications, as well as publishing trend. The report will be illustrated with examples of photo albums and publications trends.

Information about the speaker:

Stanislovas Žvirgždas is mostly known as a landscape photographer, art photographer and photographic historian. In the period of 1960–1961 he was studying history at Vilnius University. In 1961–1965 he was imprisoned after participating in an event in which the banned Lithuanian flag was raised. In 1972 he graduated photography at the University of Popular Art (Moscow) and thereafter worked as a photographer. The same year he became a member of the Union of Lithuanian Art Photographers and worked there as a photographer artist till 1992. From 1992 to 1996 he was a president of the Union of Lithuanian Art Photographers, from 1996 to 2013 – secretary of the board. In 1999 he was elected as the chairman of the Board of the Press, Radio and Television Support Fund. From 2001 to 2005 S. Žvirgždas served as the representative of the International Federation of Photographic Art (FIAP) in Lithuania. From 2001 he is the chairman of the Commission of Photo Experts at the Lithuanian Republic Department of Culture, from 2002 – a member of the Commission of Experts of Lithuanian Culture and Sport Support Fund of the Republic of Lithuania. The art photographer has organized more than 100 solo exhibitions both locally and abroad, has been a jury member of many photo contests. S. Žvirgždas has received numerous awards for outstanding service in culture. In 2002 he was awarded the Cross of the Knight of the Order of the Lithuanian Grand Duke, in 2004 – the Lithuanian National Culture and Art prize, in 2010 – the gold medal of Merits to the Culture in Vilnius and the prize of Balys Buračas for photography art.

International conference “Digitisation and photographic memory”

“Camera obscura: Lietuvos fotografijos istorija“ (Eng. Camera obscura: the history of Lithuanian photography) – that is the name of the forthcoming monograph, written by dr. Margarita Matulytė and dr. Agnė Narušytė that explores the history of Lithuanian photography dating from 1839 to 1945. The title of the book refers to the research object: camera obscura (Lat. dark room), to be more precisely – photography, appearing at the moment when the light flux penetrates into the darkness. In addition it talks about the history of photography and its writing, which could say, also appear out of the darkness, silence and waiting. The writing, which poses a challenging task: to find, to come back, to remember when so much has destroyed, lost, forgotten.

M. Matulytė and A. Narušytė will discuss the writing of the history of Lithuanian photography – which assesses and newly interprets the previous stories, revealing the most significant trends in photography. The evolution of photography is examined in the context of important historical events, highlighting the most prominent personalities. Chronological story telling allows discuss the issues and problems of photography of different historical periods, although sometimes you have to go beyond the chronological limits.

Information about speakers:

Dr. Margarita Matulytė. Photo by R. Danisevičius

Dr. Margarita Matulytė – doctor of humanities, photography historian and the photography specialist of the Lithuanian Art Museum. She has been studying Lithuanian photography since 1995. Since 1998 M. Matulytė is a member of The International Council of Museums (ICOM), since 2005 – a member of the Union of Lithuanian Art Photographers. In the period of 1995–2001 she was the head of the Iconography Department of the National Museum of Lithuania. In 2005 M. Matulytė was studying the Italian language and culture for foreigners in University of Perugia (Italy), in 2008 – English language, culture and communication in Oxford International Study Centre. In the period of 2006–2008 she was a lecturer at Vilnius University Faculty of History, during 2006–2007 – a lecturer in the Faculty of Humanities at Vilnius Academy of Arts, since 2007 – a lecturer at the Institute of Journalism at Vilnius University. M. Matulytė has published more than 100 publications in the Lithuanian and foreign press, has compiled more than 20 books and curated more than 10 Lithuanian and international exhibitions. Since 2002 she has been working in the Lithuanian Art Museum as a preserver and researcher of the photography collection, curator of exhibitions.

Agnė Narušytė, PhD. Photo by A. Valužis

Agnė Narušytė, PhD, is an art critic and curator, with a particular interest in contemporary photography and art as well as ideas linking photography, philosophy and psychology. She studied art history at Vytautas Magnus University (Kaunas, Lithuania), Central European University (Prague) and Vilnius Academy of Arts (Lithuania). Narušytė curated the photographic collection of the Lithuanian Art Museum, also lectured at the Vilnius Academy of Arts and Edinburgh Napier University (UK), edited the foreign culture page of the Lithuanian cultural weekly 7 meno dienos and created programmes on culture for the Lithuanian National Television. In 2008, she published the Lithuanian version of this book, Nuobodulio estetika Lietuvos fotografijoje, based on her PhD thesis, in 2011 – a history of contemporary Lithuanian photography (Lietuvos fotografija: 1990–2010). Currently she is Head of the Art History and Theory Department, Vilnius Academy of Arts.

International conference “Digitisation and photographic memory”

Danutė Mukienė

Photography – a part of documentary heritage. It witnesses the most important events and captures the specific personalities associated with them. Often only from photographs we can restore major events and the role of specific individuals. This is particularly true speaking about the importance of photographs held in our museums. Lithuanian museums have significant and valuable collections of historical and artistic photographs. The largest collections of historical photographs are held by the Lithuanian National Museum, the M. K. Čiurlionis National Museum of Art, the Šiauliai “Aušra” Museum, the Lithuanian Art Museum, the Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum, the Kaunas 9th Fort Museum, the Biržai Region Museum “Sėla”, the Panevėžys Local Lore Museum, the Samogitian Museum “Alka”, the Kretinga Museum, the Rokiškis Regional Museum.

There are not many photographs dated the first century of the rise of photography, but they are very significant. This period involves such important historical events as The January Uprising of 1863, the ban of the Lithuanian Press in Latin Characters and its cancellation, the First World War, the Lithuanian national movement and the restoration of Lithuanian Statehood.

For many Lithuanian museums participation in international project of digitization and dissemination of old photographs EuropeanaPhotography was a big impulse and an incentive to structure the information about historic photography stored in museums, as well as to digitize it and to present it to the public in modern and attractive ways.

Starting the project it was planned to digitize and make available 20 thousands of old photographs kept at Lithuanian museums. Later it became clear that the amount can be greater, because some museums, which previously hadn’t planned to participate in the project, started working with Lithuanian Integral Museum Information System and understood the importance of digitization of photographs. Now they are beginning to digitize and publicize old photos, stored in their collection. In the future information about these photographs is going to be seen in the biggest Europe’s cultural heritage portal Europeana.

Information about the speaker:

Danutė Mukienė is a journalist, museum specialist, book and periodicals editor and publisher. She has graduated from the Vilnius University, the faculty of history, obtained journalist profession. Since 1975 she has been working in press publications. In addition a number of years she has worked as a radio editor in Skuodas’ region radio collaborated in national radio creating shows in Samogitian dialect. In 1991 D. Mukienė founded a publication called “A mon sakaa?” – the newspaper of the Samogitian Cultural Society and the first dialectal newspaper in Lithuania. In the period of 1991–1993 she worked as its editor. In 1993 the newspaper was reorganized into the magazine “Žemaičių žemė”. D. Mukienė edits and publishes it to date. In 1993 she was a deputy director for culture of Department of Culture and Education of Palanga Municipality. During the period of 1996–2004 D. Mukienė was the head of the Information Culture Centre of the Samogitian Cultural Society based in Vilnius. In 2009 she was giving lectures at the Institute of Journalism at Vilnius University. Since 1999 she has been working at the Lithuanian Art Museum. D. Mukienė is the head of the Department of the Lithuanian Art Museum (LAM) Lithuanian Museums’ Centre for Information, Digitisation and LIMIS, where she is responsible for national and international cultural heritage digitization projects. During the period 1998–2013 she has implemented several digital publishing projects. The most important of them are portals “Lietuvos muziejai” (Eng. Museums of Lithuanian), “Senoji lietuvių skulptūra, kryžiai ir koplytėlės” (Eng. Old Lithuanian Sculpture, Crosses and Shrines), “Lietuvos dailės muziejus” (Eng. Lithuanian Art Museum), etc.

International conference “Digitisation and photographic memory”