Connect to Collect: Preserving Social Digital Photography Through Collaboration and Community Engagement

A Talk by Karolina Hedström, Stockholm County Museum, Sweden and Bente Jensen, Aalborg City Archives, Denmark

Wednesday, May 14th 2025, 11am EDT (8am PDT; 4pm BST)

Register for the online event

This talk will present the Connect to Collect, a collaborative network of museums and archives dedicated to collecting and preserving social digital photography. Through the development of the innovative web app Connect to Collect, we aim to explore new methods for gathering and curating this vital form of contemporary heritage. 

 Our current project emphasizes community engagement, employing citizen science approaches to address contemporary themes such as social and ecological sustainability, place, identity and sudden traumatic events (such as the 2017 Stockholm Terrorist Attack). Everyday digital photography—often shared on social media—represents a powerful documentation of modern society from the perspective of citizens and communities. Together, Nordic museums and archives involved in this initiative are pioneering participatory strategies to preserve this invaluable cultural heritage.