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Miklós Tamási (Hungarian photo curator)
Miklós Tamási (Budapest, 18 December, 1970) Hungarian photo curator, cultural manager, the founder of Fortepan photo archive, heritage activist

Biography
He studied Polish in Kossuth University, Eastern Hungary, he interrupted his studies. He received a degree in typography in Moholy-Nagy Art University in 2007. He worked for Young Artists’ Stúdió 1997-1999. He worked for the Open Society Archive (part of Central European University), first as an archivist, later as programme director, 1999-2015. He started to collect discarded photo negatives as a student, in the late 1980s. He was drawn to old photos by his intense interest in history, especially the 1956 revolution. He himself took thousands of photos in 1989 and 1990, when democracy returned to Hungary, later he lost interest in it. He was a volunteer in Cirko-Gejzír art cinema, he transported films, he was receptionist, later curator, at the end of 2020 he was the Chairman of the Board.

Fortepan photo archive
During the second part of the 2000s Miklós Tamási and his friend Ákos Szepessy decided to scan the most interesting negatives they had earlier found in Budapest streets, and finally they made them accessible online, via a site called Fortepan. The name is a hint to the once popular negative film of the former photochemical factory Forte, in Vác, northern Hungary. fortepan.hu went online on 20 August 2010, with 5000 photographs, arranged in chronological order. Everyone was free to download, in large resolution, free of permission or charge. This is a curated archive, one cannot upload photos, only offer images. (The originals are routinely given back to the original owners.) The archive became successful overnight, as digital publications, that hitherto could not afford to buy old photos, started to use Fortepan images by the hundred, and interviewed editor Tamási alongside. This success more or less forced Fortepan programmers to make the portal searchable. Thus, a portal meant to be a nostalgia project, slowly became useful, a source for school history classes and coursebooks. very soon a forum was launched on the site of the then most read general portal, Index, for “problem solvers”, who began to quarrel with each other, about the location of particular photos. Thus, Fortepan became a crowdsourcing exercise. More popularity meant more donations. At the end of 2020 the number of photos Fortepan offers, exceeded 140 thousand. They are from over 700 families, and three dozen institutions. Search is possible by free text or by over 7000 tags. Fortepan collects only photos taken prior to 1990. In 2014 Miklós Tamási left his job at OSA Archives, and he devotes himself solely to Fortepan. From that year the project is supported by Summa Artium. They scrape together the money to cover the livelihood of the editor. Apart from him the others in the team all work on a voluntary basis.

Contributions in Books

 * Ungváry, Krisztián: Budapest 1945, (editor, the pictures selected by Tamási Miklós), Corvina Publishers, 2006.
 * Moszkvai Levelezés 1956-1958 (Lapok Hegedűs András volt miniszterelnök hagyatékából), [Correspondence from Moscow – Pages from the Legacy of Prime Minister András Hegedüs, released and compiled by Milós Tamási], Stencil Publishers, Budapest, 2010.

Scripts for films

 * Papp, Gábor Zsigmond: Budapest Retró I-II. 1996 - 2003.
 * Papp, Gábor Zsigmond: Balaton Retró 2007.
 * Papp, Gábor Zsigmond: Magyar Retró 2010.
 * Papp, Gábor Zsigmond: Az ügynök élete (belügyi oktatás a Kádár-korszakban), 2004. [The life of a secret agent, education for the staff of the Ministry of Interior during the Kádár régime], 2004

Exhibitions

 * 2 Ütem - Bukarest téri buszállomás [2 Phases – The Bukarest Square Bus Station] with Ákos Szepessy 2004.
 * Kettős Látás [Double Vision] - Bartók 32 Galéria – with Dávid Sándor és Ákos Szepessy, 2010.
 * Every Past is My Past – Hungarian National Gallery Wing „A” (co-curator, with curator István Virágvölgyi) 2019.
 * The Past is Yours – Fortepan exhibition at the Łódż Fotofestiwal (co-curator, with curator István Virágvölgyi), 2020.

Curatorial Work in Centralis Galéria, Budapest

 * Halott Könyvtár, [Dead Library], 2012.
 * Öngyilkosság, [Suicide] 2018.

Other Projects

 * Budapest100 festival: mastermind of the original idea in 2010, participator ever since
 * The Reconstruction of the Imre Nagy Trial – a one-week event, OSA 2008.
 * Housing Blocks wit Yellow Stars programme, on the 70th anniversary of Holocaust in Hungary, 2014. (original idea and curatorial work)
 * The research project concerning the films survived from the film studio of Hungarian Ministry of Interior, the cataloguing and digitalisation of films, OSA, 2002-2004.

On Miklós Tamási and Fortepan in English
Bunyan, Dr. Marcus: Art Blart

Every Past is My Past, the digital version of the exhibition in Hungarian National Gallery, 16 April – 29 September

Looking at Fortepan Photo Archive, in Three Ways (An article for the catalogue of "Every Past isMy Past" – a photo exhibition in the National Gallery, Budapest, 2019

[ A description of Fortepan on Courage

http://cultural-opposition.eu/registry/?uri=http://courage.btk.mta.hu/courage/individual/n12820

https://www.budapesttimes.hu/hungary/90-years-of-photos-to-browse/

https://hypeandhyper.com/en/get-ready-for-heti-fortepan/

https://hyperallergic.com/504429/fortepan-hungarian-photo-archive/

https://hungarytoday.hu/fortepan-online-photo-archive-hungary-miklos-tamasi-interview/