Austria | A university-wide course at Central European University (CEU) is blending academic research with creative art to challenge the historical gaps in colonial-era archives. Co-taught by CEU practice-based faculty and Dr. Hanin Hannouch, the Curator for Analog and Digital Media at the Weltmuseum Wien, the “Critical Fabulation and Anonymity” course pushes students to engage with the museum’s collection of over 75,000 historical photographs attributed to “unknown photographers.”The innovative curriculum relies on “critical fabulation”—a methodology developed by theorist Saidiya Hartman that uses speculative storytelling and creative fiction to address systemic archival silences. Rather than treating the images as static, objective facts, students selected anonymous photographs and spent a trimester reconstructing the invisible lives, historical settings, and power dynamics behind the camera. The final research outcomes transcended traditional academic essays, manifesting instead as practical multimedia art pieces, including analogue zines, textile guidebooks, experimental video essays, and narrative point-and-click video games.The collaborative academic experiment culminated in a public workshop at the Weltmuseum Wien, drawing over 50 regional curators, cultural professionals, and university researchers. Due to the high caliber and critical rigor of the visual research projects, several student creations—including an educational video game addressing the provenance of Mayan artifacts and a mock 19th-century travel guide critiquing industrial extraction in Baku—are being considered for permanent acquisition into the Weltmuseum Wien’s collection.
Source: Central European University
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