researching the photo archive
Open Call for Applications: International Residency
Researching the Photo Archive and Creating a Joint Exhibition
The Estonian National Museum's photo archive, ranging from glass negatives to digital images, is open to researchers. Four residents will have the opportunity to immerse themselves in our photo archive over a six-month period and, as a result of their work, co-create a joint exhibition in ERM’s temporary exhibition hall (742 sqm), open from 25 November 2026 to 4 July 2027.
The Collection
The Estonian National Museum holds more than 400,000 photographs, collected since the second half of the 19th century. Established in 1910, the collection documents everyday life in Estonia, material culture, and social change. Every archive functions as a form of infrastructure: what is collected, how it is described, what is digitised, and how it is made accessible all rely on specific decision-making models. Catalogue cards, metadata, and database queries reflect value choices and shape access to memory—and, consequently, how that memory is understood.
The Framework
This residency operates within the context visual anthropology, examining photographs not just as images of culture, but as evolving cultural practice itself. What do people do with pictures and what do pictures do with people? In modern data-driven societies, photographs undergo another metamorphosis, through technical systems that are not neutral.
The Estonian National Museum offers four residents a collaborative creative research process. We propose a few points of reference, while we welcome diverse interpretations.
1. The Archive as Everyday Culture
What kinds of lives are considered “everyday”? What is deemed worth photographing? How have the collector’s questions and working frameworks shaped what entered the archive?
2. Looking, Ethics, and Interpretation
This perspective focuses on the social dimension of photography. Who photographed whom—and why? What power relations existed between photographer and subject? How do these photographs become public heritage?
3. Montage, Patterns, and Time
When similar images are placed side by side, what patterns or narratives emerge? How does repetition produce categories of normality and typicality?
4. The Archive as Infrastructure
Examining the archive as an operational system. How do metadata schemes and digitisation choices affect the discoverability of photographs? How do technical decisions shape cultural memory?
Process
Residents will work with a shared body of material to ensure comparability of outcomes. Continuous collaboration is expected through workshops and feedback sessions, culminating in a jointly produced exhibition.
Financial and Logistical Support from the Museum
A creative grant of 10,000€ per resident.
Accommodation and transport expenses for co-working periods and during exhibition installation period.
The production costs of the exhibition, subject to approval.
Full access to our archives with institutional support.
An exhibition architect and the museum’s production team to create the exhibition.
Requirements for Applicants
Demonstrated and substantial engagement with photography, archives, ethnography or visual anthopology through artistic, research-based or hybrid practices
Availability to conduct six months of research
Wllingness to engage in meaningful collaboration
A critical and open approach
Presentation of research outcomes within the exhibition development process
Proficiency in English (Working language of the residency)
Applicants are not required to hold an academic degree or prior archival experience. Backgrounds in ethnology, cultural studies, semiotics, information science, or film are welcome where they bring a critical perspective to the photo collection. Curiosity, collaborative skills, and commitment are key.
Exhibition Aim
The exhibition seeks to make visible the hidden layers of archival systems and to demonstrate how multiple perspectives reveal different facets of the same material. It will also foreground the archive’s role as an infrastructure of cultural memory.
How To Apply
Submit your application here no later than 28 February 2026.
Please include:
CV (maximum of 2 pages)
Portfolio
Role statement: Which position are you applying for and why are you suited for this role?
Research proposal: What questions would you bring to this archive? What methods or approaches might you use?
Timeline
28 February 2026 – Application deadline
27 March – Residents confirmed
1 May - 30 September – Residency period
25-29 May first co-creation period
29 June - 3 July second co-creation period
26 November 2026 – Opening of the exhibition
Residents will be selected by the Exhibitions Committee of the Estonian National Museum.
For questions, please contact residency@erm.ee.