doc. dr. sc. Sandra Križić-Roban

Sandra Križić Roban holds a PhD in the field of art history and is engaged in theory and criticism, curatorial practice, teaching and writing. She works at the Institute of Art History in Zagreb as a scientific advisor in a permanent position, and was elected to the title of associate professor for the scientific field of humanities, the field of art history, the branch of history and theory of fine arts, architecture, urbanism and visual communications.

Her research topics are contemporary art, history and theory of photography, post-war architecture, issues of public space and alternative strategies of memory, and her areas of activity are criticism and theory of visual arts and architecture, curatorial practice and writing. She led a scientific project funded by the Croatian Science Foundation (Exposition. Themes and Aspects of Croatian Photography from the 19th Century to the Present), and has recently been an associate on the HRZZ project "Where East meets West": Travel Narratives and Creating an Image of the Artistic Heritage of Dalmatia in Modern Europe /c. 1675 – c. 1941/, 2024 – 2027. She was the head of the Croatian part of the research on three international competitive projects funded by Creative Europe (The Cycle – Co-creating the Future of the European Photographic Legacy, 2020 – 2022; Not yet written stories, 2019 – 2021; Fortgotten Heritage, 2016 – 2018).

She is a scholarship holder of the Goethe-Institut (Berlin, 2000), AICA Austrian section (Vienna, 2003), French Institute (Paris, 2003), the Provincial Government of Styria (Graz, 2009), DAAD (Berlin, 2013), the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, Warsaw (2015, 2017, 2019), the CAA Getty International Program (Los Angeles, 2018, New York, 2021). She is the winner of the AICA Croatian Section Award for Art Criticism (2006) and the Charter of the Croatian Art Historians' Association (2011).

She has published several books, book chapters and scientific papers in journals and anthologies in the country and abroad, artists' monographs and texts in catalogues, and edited numerous scientific and professional publications. She has presented at international conferences abroad and in Croatia. Her bibliography includes more than 1,600 reviews, reviews, essays, professional and scientific papers in print media and broadcast as part of radio and television shows. She is the author and curator of numerous group and solo exhibitions in the country and abroad. She is one of the founders of the Office of Photography, a non-profit association for contemporary photography.

Sandra Križić Roban's research topics are contemporary art, history and theory of photography, post-war modern architecture, issues of public space and alternative strategies of memory, in a wide range from traditional to new media, from classical visual disciplines to the shift to the multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary and conceptual. Her areas of activity are criticism and theory of visual arts and architecture, curatorial practice and writing. Her research is largely focused on the synthesis of post-war art photography, as well as on a number of aspects of this field that appeared in earlier periods, and that have not been critically considered so far. In recent years, she has been particularly researching the photographic practices of women as well as the reception of their work in the professional and popular press. She is interested in the affirmation of the ethical and the consideration of the critical action of the individual on the collective consciousness. She paid special attention to the "gender component", introducing the neglected and forgotten contributions of women into the art history curriculum, or evaluating a more complex and socially motivated perception of what has already been introduced. In particular, she follows the current work of women visual artists, and their share in the production of contemporary history. In addition, she works in the field of culture of memory and alternative methods of memorialization, directing her interest towards architecture and changes that occur in public space by applying various methods of content interpolation and temporary artistic interventions. She is interested in the fate of memory, the design of places of memory, with an emphasis on marking the places of trauma – the motif of ambiguity and non-appropriation in research, interpreting them in relation to public space as a space of collective memory.

The course Culture of Remembrance - Memorial Sites, Monuments, Anti-Monuments and Counter-Monuments deals with changes in public space, based on tradition and cultural and historical heritage and confronted with them by the negation of history and/or modification of its narrative; the procedures of archiving, ideologization and displacement of the process of memory are analyzed, as well as the relationship to the place of memory as a social framework and not a specific location intended for memorialization.

– Formats of (Non)Seeing (eds. Sandra Križić Roban, Leonida Kovač, Ana Šeparović, Martin Kuhar), Zagreb: Institute of Art History, ISBN 978-953-373-042-4 (editorial book, author's foreword, co-authored text with A. Šeparović)

24. 10. – 3. 12. 2023. – "Illuminated Room. Women's Photographic Practice in Croatia", Nikola Tesla Technical Museum, Zagreb, and "Illuminated Room – Conflict", Ethnographic Museum, Zagreb, 26. Organization: Art Pavilion in Zagreb (author's research, exhibition concept, selection of works and text in the exhibition brochure)

– Watching, Waiting: The Photographic Representation of Empty Places, Leuven: Leuven University Press, ISBN 9789461665201 (editorial book, with Ana Šverko)

– Leaning Images. Reading Nasta Rojc and Ana Mušćet // W.G. Sebald's Artistic Legacies. Memory, Word and Image, Kovač, Leonida; Lerm Hayes, Christa-Maria; van Rijn, Ilse; Saloul, Ihab (eds.). Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 131–149. ISBN 9789463729758 doi:10.5117/9789463729758_ch07 (book chapter)

– Branko Balić, Zagreb: Institute of Art History. ISBN 978-953-7875-91-6 (artist's monograph, with Irena Šimić)

8. – 31. 12. 2022. – "Shared Photographic Narratives", final exhibition of the three-year project, Museum of Fine Arts, Osijek; Striegl Gallery, Sisak (co-author of the exhibition project, co-editor and author of the text in the book of the same name)

– A Box, a Suitcase, a Museum. Photographic Records of Croatian Immigrants to the United States // Contact Zones. Photography, Migration, and Cultural Encounters in the United States, Carville, Justin; Lien, Sigrid (ed.). Leuven: Leuven University Press, 179–204. ISBN 9789462702523 doi:10.11116/9789461663573 (chapter in the book)

6. 12. 2018. – 28. 2. 2019. – 26. Slavonian Biennale, "Flat Plate", Museum of Fine Arts, Osijek (author of the exhibition concept and foreword in the catalogue, president of the jury)

– Croatian Painting from 1945 to the Present: The Responsibility of the Painting in the Time of the Impatient Gaze, Zagreb: Naklada Ljevak. 2013. ISBN: 978-953-303-623-6 (author's book)

– At Second Sight. Positions of Contemporary Croatian Photography, Zagreb: Institute of Art History; UPI-2M [Croatian, English] ISBN: 978-953-6106-89-9 (author's book)