Photo archives as laboratories for sciences and societies

The flood of images prevailing in the digital habitat virtually repeats the media “revolution” that the spread of photography in the 19th century brought to science and society. Five publications of the Photothek of the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz from 2020 provide theoretical and methodological tools for dealing with this. According to them, photo archives are scientific and social laboratories as well as experimental spaces (also for artists), from which reflections on materiality, value systems, taxonomy and even current topics such as cultural heritage or migration emerge.