Jaroslava Panáková delivered a lecture entitled Affective Images, Ecological Memories: Photography between the Arctic Tundra and the Carpathian Meadow in Kraków

The lecture explored the concept of affective knowledge and its relationship to memory, particularly ecological memory. Jaroslava Panáková discussed how she initially developed this concept through research on the family photographic archives of Indigenous inhabitants of Chukotka and subsequently applied it to the study of Carpathian meadows. She demonstrated how photographs not only preserve memories but also mediate knowledge of changing environments through affective and sensory experiences.

This approach underpins the PHOMEA – Photographic Meadow (APVV-25-0629) project, which she introduced in the second part of the lecture. The project investigates how archival ethnographic photographs, historical aerial imagery, and repeat photography can be used to explore the ecological memory of meadows. Mowing, grazing, drainage, and land abandonment leave traces in the landscape that can be identified and interpreted through photographs and brought into dialogue with the contemporary experiences of local inhabitants.

The lecture thus connected visual anthropology with ecological research, raising questions about photography as a means of understanding relationships between people, landscapes, and their transformations.

Pictures: Jaroslava Panáková