Museums and Photography

Elena Stylianou is Assistant Professor in Art History and Theory at European University Cyprus and the founder and coordinator of its Cultural Studies and Contemporary Arts Lab. She has taught in well-known museums in New York, such as the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and the Museum of the City of New York and has been involved in various curatorial projects. She has received several fellowships and awards, including a Fulbright Scholarship (USA) and an Art Table Museum Fellowship (USA).Theopisti Stylianou-Lambert is Assistant Professor at the School of Fine and Applied Arts at the Cyprus University of Technology and the founder and coordinator of its Visual Sociology and Museum Studies Lab. Her previous books include The Political Museum (2016), Museums and Visitor Photography (2016) and Photography and Cyprus (2014). She has received several scholarships and awards, including a Smithsonian Fellowship in Museum Practice (USA) and a Fulbright Fellowship (USA).

"In essence, the images of death in a museum context question the communicative capacity and constraints of photography and the role of museums in elucidating the human condition. This book will likely stimulate some new thinking about death and its multi-layered meanings that define who we are." – Vivian Ting Wing Yan, The Academy of Visual Arts, Hong Kong

• Approaches to Displaying Death in Museums: An Introduction Elena Stylianou & Theopisti Stylianou-LambertPART I: EVIDENCING THE PASTNegotiating Death at the Great Kanto Earthquake Memorial MuseumJ. M. HammondHonoring the dead: photography and the display of the Jewish Necropolis at the Jewish Museum of ThessalonikiIro Katsaridou“Death from the skies.” Photographs in museums of the aerial bombing of civilians during World War TwoSheila WatsonSaints, Martyrs and Heroes: “Sacred Displays” or the Iconography of Death in Cypriot MuseumsYiannis Toumazis PART II: THE SPECTABLE OF DEATHThe War/Photography Exhibition and the Display of DeathJean Kempf“Persons Unknown”: Lynching Photographs in the MuseumRM WolffHuman Skulls and Photographs of Dead Bandits: the Problems of Presenting a Nineteenth Century Museum to Twenty-First-Century-AudiencesSilvano Montaldo and Eleanor Chiari Our First Murder: Exhibiting Evidence outside the Police ArchiveStella Pekiaridi PART III: EMPAPHY AND RESTORING ANONYMITYA Gallery of Martyrs – The Martyr in the Gallery: Public Display and the Artistic Appropriation of Martyr Images in the Middle EastVerena StraubWhat Will You Remember When I’m Gone? Funerary Photography in the Gallery’s Public / Private Space Rosanne AltstattRemediating Death at Yad Vashem’s Holocaust History Museum Rachel PerryPhotography and the Museum: visiting the sight of Death Pam MeechamPART IV: MUSEUMS AS AGENTS OF CHANGEDouble Exposure: Absence and Evidence in Ken Gonzales-Day’s Erased LynchingReilley Bishop-Stall On May 1, 2011 (Alfredo Jaar, 2011) – Expanding the Frame of the Original Photograph Mafalda DâmasoPhotography as a form of taxidermy: Zoe Leonard’s Preserved Head of a Bearded Woman, Musée OrfilaChelsea Nichols