"What colour is normal?" A conversation with Marge Monko and Linda Kaljundi

A conversation about colour, power and photography. Who decides which skin tone is "right"? How have photographic colour standards shaped the way people are depicted? And when does colour stop being a technical property and become a tool for establishing social hierarchies? Starting from the history of photography, artist Marge Monko and historian and curator Linda Kaljundi look at how historical ways of depicting people live on and affect non-privileged groups today. They discuss the classification of skin tone, ethnographic photography, racial hierarchies and how seemingly objective technologies have reinforced social prejudice. The talk also touches on Anna-Stina Treumund's work "Nahk / Skin" (2015).

The conversation is about how technical standards carried ideas of normality: for decades Kodak Shirley cards used a light-skinned woman's skin tone as the reference point for calibrating colour photographs. Monko's installation "Blond" (2021), shown in Kumu's permanent exhibition "Identity Landscapes", links photography's standards of skin depiction to the beauty ideals of the 1930s.

Thursday 19 November, 18:00, Photomuseum, Raekoja 6, Tallinn.