Memories In the Hands of Photographers – A Study of Artistic Practices in Swedish and International Photobooks

This master thesis is a study of artistic practices that photographers use to narrate and visualize memories. As a conclusion of the thesis, I claim that the studied practices have identifiable characteristics that are possible to group and describe in generic terms, i.e. the descriptions are not based on specific artists or pieces of art. By providing generic descriptions, I argue that the outcome of the study can be used when analysing similar material by other photographers.

The studied material consists of Swedish and international artistic photobooks that in different ways are centred around memories. All in all, I analyse fourteen photobooks by eleven artists. Apart from the images, I also study texts that are related to the material, e.g. essays that are included in the photobooks or artist interviews that come from external sources.

As a theoretical framework for the thesis, I refer to a broad range of literature related to memory studies, and I discuss concepts such as individual memory, collective memory, cultural memory and postmemory. The approach is interdisciplinary, and, apart from art history, I refer to scholarly material from subjects such as psychology, history, and ethnography.

Furthermore, in the summary, I discuss how photography in relation to memory studies might evolve based on contemporary concepts such as the Anthropocene and deep time.