Barbara Giza

Barbara Giza, prof. SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Warsaw, associate professor at the Department of Journalism (head of the Department since 2012), filmographer and researcher at the National Film Archive – Audiovisual Institute in Warsaw, where she conducts research in the field of audiovisual archives, especially film archives as databases and their social potential, over the film audience and the social role of film. Film and cultural studies expert, dealing with the cultural aspects of film as well as film literature and broadly understood relations between film and literature. She also carries out research projects on the role of audiovisual databases in high-quality journalism and audiovisual production. Co-author of documentaries (One of them, „Hen and War”, received the Audience Award in 2020 at the Warsaw Jewish Film Festival „Camera of David”). Board member of the Polish Film and Media Research Society and the International Federation of Film Critics FIPRESCI. Member – specialist of the Art Sciences Committee of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Author of scientific works on film history, audiovisual culture, sociology and anthropology of the media. Author of a number of popular science projects relating to film archives as databases and sources of knowledge, as well as to the area of media science and media culture. The author of books on this issue as well as a scientific co-editor and author of texts, incl. Polish Film Critics series: “Konrad Eberhardt” (2013), “Aleksander Jackiewicz” (2015), “Krzysztof Mętrak” (2019), “Maria Kornatowska” (2020), “September 1939. Film texts and contexts” (2021), “Archives in contemporary film studies” ( 2020).

Description of the speech

The socially engaged archive. Audiovisual archives in the face of key contemporary social problems: forecasts, changes, challenges.

Questions about the role of the archive in society and culture, and about its identity, have recently been taken up quite often in scientific and archival discourse. The aim of the speech is to present a reflection that is an attempt to combine these perspectives, often opposed to each other, in the context of key contemporary social problems in which archives, which societies require and impose certain roles, try to take an active part in. I select a few problems related to: issues of sustainability, promotion of new forms of education, especially transdisciplinary, digitization (sometimes even infodemia, i.e. an excess of data), changes in the labor market, requiring new skills and competences. I will present these issues based on the analysis of various examples of projects in which audiovisual archives, including social archives, play leading, innovative roles.