For sure it is. But sometimes, when a dream feels too big for us, too grandiose, it remains unachievable, a phantasm.
A dream was dreamed throughout the last 100 years:
That of a Museum of Photography in Romania. Nicolae Ionescu, a colleague of Iosif Berman and another amazing photographer, bequeath his photographs to the Romanian Academy, for the future Museum of Photography. But, yet, a single brick was not laid on its foundation.
To make a big dream come true, two things are needed:
1. Breaking it down into small,
achievable bits
2. Persistently following through
Iosif Berman. Clouds in the Bucegi mountains. October 1927, Romania Ilustrata, digitized by The National Library of Romania.
A dream was dreamed through the last couple of years:
To shed light to the works of Iosif Berman, the man with 1000 eyes, and truly include his images in the European and international photographic heritage.
Some efforts have been done to research and exhibit him (see “Curatorship”), but we need to persistently follow through.
This platform aims to centralize his works in a unified manner and provide a platform for researchers to upload their findings, papers and thoughts with regard to Iosif Berman.
It serves as a starting point yet to be further developed (provided the access to development funding) to include more of his works, a “Stories” section, dedicated to articles & papers and contributors accounts.
It is, in other words, a beta version and pro-bono effort to celebrate the memory and pioneering vision of one of our greatest photographers of the XXth century. Please bare this in mind while exploring.
Photo from one of Dimitrie Gusti’s ethnological campaigns. Unknown details.
A dream was dreamed: that of collaboration and shared knowledge
That is why this project is also an open invitation to the institutions preserving Iosif Berman’s heritage to join this initiative, and, hence, gain themselves visibility and good reputation.
It is an open invitation to researchers to contribute and prepare their papers for submission.
It is an open invitation to anyone willing to help map and extract the photographs of Iosif Berman from the publications of the time, already digitized by the National Library of Romania.
It is an open invitation to fund raisers, European project writers, educators, photographers, videographers, musicologists, historians and everyone interested in Interwar Romania, The Royal Romanian House, Carol II and Mihai I, Dimitrie Gusti’s ethnographic campaigns, and the subsequent derived micro-subjects.
It is an invitation to open collaboration, an invitation to celebrate memory, history and multicultural, yet Romanian, yet Jewish, yet European roots.
Iosif Berman. Turkish children having fun by traininig donkeys to go up and down the stairs. Balcic., April 1927, Romania Ilustrata, digitized by The National Library of Romania.
It is an invitation to see the world through Iosif Berman’s lens, to be curious and unbiased, to be childish and unstoppable in pursuing your dream.
