The second day opens with the morning block titled Speculative Facts. Marking the bicentenary of photography, the sessions consider the often unspoken assumptions built into the medium’s visual language and how these shape ideas of reality. The opening presentation is given by Adam Mazur, introducing introducing audiences to a distinctive new voice in critical photographic research. In his series After Ways of Seeing, he explores how digital environments are reshaping power and gender dynamics in image-making. Using dating apps as his point of departure, he analyses the growing prominence of female self-representation and the fading dominance of the male gaze, while situating these shifts within the historical traditions of Central European resistance and vernacular image culture. 

Produced in 2025, the series captures a clear shift in the power dynamics of image-making in Central Europe. The project shows how women, particularly through selfies shared on dating apps, have taken control of how they are seen, while the traditional male gaze has gradually lost its relevance. Photographers who once held a dominant position now appear as distant figures within their own archives, while contemporary images place self-representation at the centre, presenting it as evidence of the ability to act and decide for oneself. The project marks Adam Mazur’s debut as an artist, bringing together experimental image-making with his earlier work as a curator and critic. The work does not frame this shift as liberation, but as a change in how photography operates emotionally and symbolically in the digital age. Drawing on Central European histories of surveillance, resistance, and vernacular image-making, the series situates these developments within a wider cultural and political context. Mazur’s presentation is followed by a talk by Iliria Sponda, titled New Objectivity: Clarity as Symbolic Capital in the Age of Post-Truth. The afternoon section, titled Right Here, Left Now, looks at how historical and visual stereotypes can be reworked, and how artists use visual practice to reclaim interpretive control. The section features presentations by Ema Gejdoš Lančaričová (Concrete Phantoms: Photography at the Edge of Presence), Cristina Moraru (Fragments of a Shattered Mirror: Toward a Poetics of Uncertainty in Central European Photography), and Leung Chi Wo and Sara Wong (Contesting Memories – Reading and Taking Photographs).   

The events are sponsored by the Wacław Felczak Foundation. 

☞ Date: Thursday, 29 January 2026, 9:30 a.m. 

☞ Venue: MOME Campus 

☞ More details in the Facebook event at:  https://www.facebook.com/events/2193589101414685/ és a weboldalon: https://workincontext.mome.hu/