The Working Group on Photography in Museums and Archives came into being in 2012, headed by the Museu Marítim de Barcelona. Created out of a need to tackle issues concerning managing and describing photographs, it was devised as a common instrument to be used in every heritage organisation in the country, and for which tools and working synergies need to be established that will promote greater understanding between professionals and users. The group is comprised of a multidisciplinary team of professionals from the world of photography who come from both public and private institutions, as well as independent professionals: museologists, librarians, documentalists, archivists, photographers, curators and restorers. It is an open group that works with a collaborative spirit with the aim that the results should be returned to the community at large.
The Working Group on Photography in Museums and Archives receives support from the Department of Culture of the Generalitat of Catalonia, and has been acknowledged as a photographic experts group.
PROJECTS
Museum plus
2012-2013. Adaptation of the software MuseumPlus (creation of the Photography Category) for describing photography collections in museums in Catalonia. Before this specific category was created, the database was not capable of documenting photography.
Tesaurus
2014-2019. Revision and translation into Catalan of the terms for procedures, deterioration in photography and photomechanical processes, based on keywords from the Getty Art & Architecture Thesaurus.
Exhibitions
Posters in photography exhibitions. Since 2016, work has been carried out on producing a user’s manual for posters in photography exhibitions, with the aim of proposing guidelines that standardise the information provided by photography, as object, in exhibitions.
EVENTS
2nd Seminar on photography in museums and archives: Documenting photography in museums. “An initiative for managing photography in museums. Working Group on Photography in MuseumPlus”. Sílvia Dahl, Dolors Jurado, Esther Martos. Seminars organised by the MMB. Barcelona, 30th May 2013.
Europeana Photography Seminar. Software for managing digital collections. “Museum photography group”. Silvia Dahl. Seminar organised by the Department of Culture of the Generalitat of Catalonia and the Centre de Recerca i Difusió de la Imatge (Girona). Barcelona, 29th January 2014.
5th Seminar of the Network of Maritime Museums of the Catalan Coast: Documenting museum collections. “Networking: The experiences of the Working Group on Photography in Museums and Archives”. Seminar organised by the MMB in collaboration with the Museu de la Pesca de Palamós. Silvia Dahl, Laia Foix. Palamós, 1st October 2015.
3rd Seminar on photography in museums, archives and libraries: A common language, effective dissemination. “Photography in words: a vocabulary produced by the Museums and Archives Photography Group for all institutions dealing with photographic heritage”. Laia Foix, Pep Parer. Seminar organised by the MMB. Barcelona, 4th November 2015.
3rd Seminar on photography in museums, archives and libraries: A common language, effective dissemination. “Using the thesaurus for photography in the MuseumPlus Photography Category”. Abel Carretero, Silvia Dahl, Dolors Jurado. Seminar organised by the MMB. Barcelona, 4th November 2015.
4th Seminar on photography in museums, archives and libraries: Conservation in photography: diagnosis and treatment. “How to describe deterioration in photography: Catalan version of the AAT Thesaurus (Getty)”. Laia Foix, Mayte Lyngg. Seminar organised by the MMB. Barcelona, 7th June 2017.
4th Seminar on photography in museums, archives and libraries: Conservation in photography: diagnosis and treatment. “Silver mirroring: a visual lexicon of photography deterioration”. Laura Covarsí, Marta Garcia, Pep Parer. Seminar organised by the MMB. Barcelona, 7th June 2017.
Photoconsortium annual event. “Photography deterioration terminology. A proposal to broaden the Europeana Photography vocabulary”. Silvia Dahl, Laia Foix. Seminar organised by the Centre de Recerca i Difusió de la Imatge (Girona) and Photoconsortium. Girona, 9th June 2017.
5th Meeting on photography in museums, archives and libraries: Photomechanical procedures: processes that are stable but difficult to identify. Seminar organised by the MMB. Barcelona, 15th October 2019.
Autora: Laura Covarsí
LINKS OF INTEREST
Keywords
You can look up and use the photography keywords at this link to the IEFC website.
Deterioration
Check the most common examples of DETERIORATION in photography, with the images and photography keyword.
The vocabulary created by the Working Group on Photography in Museums and Archives, as an expert group in the field of photography, has been accepted by the General Directorate of Archives, Libraries, Museums and Heritage (of the Generalitat of Catalonia’s Department of Culture) as a contributor to the Getty Art & Architecture Thesaurus (AAT) for translation into Catalan.
This vocabulary has been validated by Termcat (the official organ on the regulation and standardisation of the Catalan language).
