9 a. m.:
Breakfest & Check-In
Opening Remarks „United in not Knowing“ (de)
PERCEPTION (de/eng)
Where do photographic images reach the limits of knowledge?
The focus is on the limits of the visible, the legible, and the recognizable—first in human perception, then in its technical extensions, all the way to the view into space. Photography does not appear here as a neutral window onto the world, but rather as a selective, perspectival, and technically mediated process in which knowledge is constantly confronted with uncertainty, error, opacity, and overwhelming complexity. Photographic images, scientific imaging practices, and media-mediated visibilities are not understood as transparent evidence, but rather as forms in which insight and inaccessibility manifest simultaneously.
Host: Anja Schürmann (Art Historian, Permanent reseacher Fellow Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut Essen)
Lecture and Panel: Daniel Stier (Artist, Wiesbaden/London), Sonja Riegler (Philosopher, Post Doc Research Centre Normative Orders at Goethe University Frankfurt), Sophie-Charlotte Opitz (Professor of Media Studies at Dortmund University of Applied Sciences and Arts and freelance curator), Jens Schröter (Professor of Media Studies at the University of Bonn), Julian Peschel (Graphic and Information Designer, Berlin), Viktoriia Tymonova (Artist, Ukraine)
1 – 2 p. m.
Lunch Break
2 p. m.
PRACTICES (eng)
How Does Photography Engage with Not-Knowing?
The focus is on artistic and research-based practices that make not-knowing productive. The discussion centers on forms of experimentation, keeping things open, assembling, and erasing. This raises the question of whether photography generates knowledge or whether its particular power lies precisely in making uncertainty, ambivalence, and unavailability visible and workable. In doing so, the focus is not only on the practices of photography but also on the practices of its mediation: What systems of knowledge and hierarchies shape photographic education? How can we conceive of teaching situations in which authority, expertise, and institutional certainties are themselves up for debate?
Host: Urs Stahel (Curator, Author, Educator, Artistic Director of Fondazione MAST, Bologna)
Lecture Performances, Round Table & Workshops: Ana Hupe (Artist, research associate, and lecturer in art history at Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle), Munem Wasif (Artist, Curator, Educator, Dhaka, Bangladesch), Tobias Zielony (Artist based in Berlin and Professor of Photography at HFBK Hamburg), Karina Nimmerfall (Artist and Professor of Artistic-Media Practice at the Department of Art and Music, University of Cologne), Danielle Rosales (Communication Designer and Sociologist, Co-Founder of Studio Visual Intelligence, Berlin), Marie Köhler (Media artist, curator, and lecturer; doctoral candidate at Bauhaus-Universität Weimar and lecturer at the Peter Behrens School of Arts at Düsseldorf University of Applied Sciences), Lilian Haberer (Professor of Art Studies at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne)
5 - 6:30 p.m.
Workshops
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Workshop 1
What You See Is All There Is? Working With / Against the Archive
With Julia Richard (Anthropologist specialising in Museums and Archives, Berlin), Language: German
How can we work with archives, images, and stories shaped by gaps, violence, or systematic silences? This workshop introduces methods of critical archival practice, including Saidiya Hartman’s concept of Critical Fabulation. Drawing on examples from colonial photographic collections, participants will explore speculative, fragmentary, and yet responsible forms of storytelling. Not-knowing is understood not as an obstacle but as an essential part of engaging with historical images and an opportunity to productively question the authority of the archive.
For curators, archivists, artists, photographers, researchers, and anyone working with historical photographs, collections, or archives.
Up to 15 people
Workshop 2
Teaching and Learning Community. Workshop by Students for Faculty
With: Tasneem Almamar & Celine Kapoor, Language: German
What happens when the roles of teachers and learners are deliberately reversed? In this workshop, students create a space in which uncertainty, not-knowing, and unverified perspectives are understood not as deficits but as starting points for collective inquiry. At the same time, existing knowledge hierarchies within academic and institutional contexts are critically examined: Who is considered knowledgeable? Whose perspectives are taken seriously—and whose experiences remain invisible? Through exercises, conversations, and shifts in perspective, participants will explore alternative ways of learning, teaching, and sharing knowledge.
Up to 15 people
Workshop 3
We Will See. Speculative Design
With Danielle Rosales (Designer, Berlin), Language: German
This workshop introduces the methods of speculative design—a design practice that aims to explore and visualize possible futures and scenarios. We view design as a tool for examining and questioning existing assumptions, formulating new questions, and envisioning possibilities before they become reality. What remains invisible? What might we see? And what visual and technical methods can be used to develop different scenarios and possible futures based on a single photograph?
Everyone who views uncertainty and change as a creative resource is invited to participate—even without prior knowledge.
Up to 15 people
Workshop 4
The Unofficial Archive: Reading Vernacular Photography
With Myriam Grigalashvili (Curator, Cultural Manager, and Researcher, Tbilisi)
How do photographs produce meaning when we know almost nothing about them? Working with anonymous snapshots and found photographs, participants closely observe visual details, follow material and contextual traces, formulate hypotheses, and compare different interpretations. Rather than searching for a single "correct" reading, the workshop explores how meaning is constructed through observation, context, and our own assumptions. Not-knowing becomes a productive space that invites curiosity, dialogue, and critical reflection on the ways photographs are read, curated, and understood.
For curators, photographers, researchers, artists, educators, and anyone interested in photography, archives, and visual culture.
Up to 15 people
7 p. m.
Photo Book Quartet (de)
Modeled on the "Literary Quartet" format, Frank Dürrach (Fotoakademie-Koeln) and Damian Zimmermann (Photoszene)—joined by guests Adelheid Komenda (LVR-Landesmuseum Bonn) and Giulia Cramm (freelance curator, Cologne)—will discuss four photobooks in conjunction with the Photoszene congress "Not Knowing – Photography and the Unknown." The event will be moderated by Andrea Oster. Participation is included for congress attendees; however, individual tickets for the photobook discussion alone can also be purchased for €7.