2015 Istanbul

Archival pigment prints (5x7 in/ 125x185 mm)

In 2015, at a conference in Istanbul, Rosenbauer shot portraits of 136 museum professionals in a series of grand locations: the Topkapi Palace, Hagia Eirene Mosque, and the Istanbul Military Museum. But in the final images, not a trace of these places remains. The experts are, quite literally, in the dark.

Museums are changing, and so is the role of the expert. Building on her Small Museum series, Rosenbauer has developed a typological photographic language to explore wider issues around museums and the experts who inhabit them. To photograph, etymologically, is to write with light. Throughout the series, the light source comes from the direction of the photographer, or, indeed, the viewer. Is it the imagemaker who now controls the interpretation of meaning? Or is it us, the public?

Text by Tom Jeffreys, writer and editor.

This photographic series was commissioned by the Communicating the Museum conference, 2015.