Photographs shape our attitude to reality, truth and to single events in the past and present. The book Ghosts and interference with the truth by Sigrún Sigurðardóttir a cultural history specialist discusses photographs as a tool for cultural analysis and looks at how photographs shape and form the self-image or identity of individuals, the family photo-album of nations and their views regarding death. Photos taken by contemporary Icelandic photographers are placed in an international context and there is a discussion on the undefined boundaries between documentary photography and creative photography.
The book´s text is both intimate and straight-forward but at the same time it consists in a theoretical analysis that is based on the principal theories of the current science of photography.
Sigrún Sigurðardóttir is a cultural history specialist. In 2009 concurrently with the publication of the book, the National Museum of Iceland launched a research exhibition titled Bondage, development, aspiration? which was based on the part of the book that deals with photographs of children at work.
Þjóðminjasafnið gaf út árið 2009.
