19.06.2026 • 21 Min.

A Folkwang Photo Talk by Theopisti Stylianou-Lambert, Cyprus University of Technology & Linköping University (in English) Can artificial intelligence help retrieve forgotten histories – or does it create new fictions instead? In this talk, Theopisti Stylianou-Lambert presents »The Archive of Grigoris Antoniou«, a speculative archive commissioned by the Hasselblad Foundation for the exhibition »Bugs and Metamorphosis« (2025). Combining AI-generated imagery with reframed historical photographs, the project aims to reconstruct the overlooked story of Grigoris Antoniou (1849–1940), a Cypriot foreman whose crucial role in colonial-era archaeologyhas largely disappeared from official historical narratives. Drawing on forty lantern slides and a film following the cataloguing of this fictional collection, the work explores how we create, interpret, and authorize archives. A fictional »Museum Bot« becomes both an assistant and unreliable narrator, exposing the tensions between archival evidence, machine interpretation, and historical truth. How can colonial photographic archives be reinterpreted by exposing their silences and underlying power structures? What responsibilities do museums and archives have when using AI to catalogue, interpret, and digitize their collections? Listen to Theopisti to explore how photography, archives, and artificial intelligence reshape our understanding of the past.