Coleção de fotografias de Eduardo Bilemjiam: construção de uma cidade, construção de memórias particulares e públicas

Abstract

This research aims to study the formation of public museum collections through private collections, with a case study of the “Eduardo Bilemjian Collection”. Its collection is partly under the custody of the Museum of Image and Sound of Goiás, MIS-GO, managed by the state government of Goiás, Brazil, and another part under the custody of the Bilemjian Family. The photographer, a refugee from the Armenian genocide, lived with his family in Lebanon until he was 15 years old, then moved to São Paulo, arriving in Goiânia in 1935. He is served as the city's official photographer until 1940, following the construction of the new state capital. From experience in the ethnographic field, the role of museological institutions in the preservation, exhibition and silencing of “things” that make up their collections and form institutionalized public memory is discussed, exploring how privately owned things become public and how structures are developed choices within a public museum.