Muzeum Warszawy: rusza akcja Społeczne opisywanie fotografii

November 2023 - April 2024

The great action of the Social Description of Photographs will be launched on November 27. This is the first initiative in Poland in which the public has been invited to help identify archival photographs from the museum's collection. The Museum of Warsaw will make available more than 5,000 never-before-shown photographs. The photos will be able to be described online on a dedicated platform. The campaign will last until next April and anyone who wants to share their knowledge can take part.

Do you know where this photo was taken?

The Warsaw Museum's collection contains several hundred thousand objects. So far, thanks to the work of researchers, historians, employees of the digitization and conservation departments, many of them have already been made available, but still a huge part remains unknown to a wider audience. When starting the Center for Photography initiative, our goal was to make it a place that we create together with our audience. We thought we would invite Varsovians, Varsovians and more broadly, all those interested in the history of the capital, to work on making our collection accessible. Each of us has an individual memory of the past. It is not uncommon for us to encounter our audience providing us with fascinating knowledge about the history of our city or objects from our collection. So why not invite them to work on our common heritage? - Karolina Puchała-Rojek, a photography historian and curator of exhibitions at the Warsaw Museum's Center of Photography, talks about the idea of the campaign.

Photography is the largest part of the Warsaw Museum's collection. Successive negatives and prints are continuously digitized and described. Identifying the people and places in the photographs requires knowledge and individual memory that cannot be replaced by artificial intelligence, which is why the Museum invites its audience to participate in the campaign. As early as November 27, a platform will be launched to view and describe selected photos. The action is designed as a game - participants will earn points for the photos they describe, which can then be exchanged for prizes.

Unknown photos of legends of Polish photography

Photographs documenting the destruction of Warsaw and its reconstruction after World War II by the following authors have been selected for the Social Description of Photography Leonard Jabrzemski, Alfred Funkiewicz, as well as Edward Hartwig - one of the most recognizable Polish photographers. Also awaiting identification are color slides from the time of the capital's transformation in the 1990s by him. Photographs taken by a greenery designer may prove particularly challenging Alina Scholtz From her study trip to China.

Describing the heritage together

The action will take place on the Dutch platform Vele Handen - meaning "many hands." This is a unique tool for crowdsourcing, or social and grassroots sharing. First used in the Netherlands, the platform will now be used to identify works from the Warsaw Museum's collection for the Social Description of Photography.

Center of Photography of the Museum of Warsaw

Social Describing Photography is part of the program of the Center of Photography, a new initiative of the Warsaw Museum aimed at fostering interest in photography. The Center of Photography is using as part of the project Focus on Photography from funding received from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway under the EEA and Norwegian funds, and is subsidized by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.

How to take part in the action?