Ivan Petrović (1973) has been working in the fields of photography and art for twenty years as a researcher, creator and collector. Since 1997, he has been creating and publishing photographic projects that reflect the spirit of space and time in which they are created, while in his works he uses both documentary approaches as well as research principles. In 2011, together with photographer Mihail Vasiljević, he founded a para-institution, the Centre for Photography (CEF). Despite lacking its own premises, infrastructure or funds for performing its activities, the institution deals with the search, preservation, collection and analysis of local photographic materials from recent history. In the past ten years, Petrović also moved his artistic practice beyond mere artistic expression, since he addresses the phenomena of photography from an analytical-theoretical point of view. His interest lies in the nature of the photographic image and its role in society and historiography. In this spirit, long-term projects such as Documents (1997–2008), Images (2002–), Portfolio Belgrade (2015–) and the latest film production were created. The interview with Ivan Petrović took place on 1 September 2017 in Belgrade. The main themes were the role of photography in the dominant history, the boundary between one’s own practice and archival work, photography as an art and the likes.
Keywords: collection, documentary, photography's role, preservation, research