Other people's stories

This chapter explores how snapshots in the age of Photography 2.0 have been incorporated into contemporary displays in art museums and galleries. It specifically examines the ways in which such imagery has been interpreted, accommodated and assimilated within art curatorial practices that renegotiate authored discourse through the deployment of polyvocal narratives and participatory practices. The chapter discusses how everyday photographic creativity and the raw materials of other people’s stories can serve as a means to interact with institutionally constructed art and local/national histories through case studies of art exhibitions that incorporated analogue or digital, public-contributed photographic content into their displays. It explores art historical debates around ‘amateur’ photography, which largely inform its curatorial treatment in the art museum. The chapter argues that desires for community engagement, expansion of the photographic genre, capturing of the vernacular, and generation of new museum content are shaping the processes and products of institutional attempts to include public-contributed photographs in contemporary art museum exhibitions.