Boris Kossoy is a photography historian, professor, photographer, museologist and architect. He graduated in Architecture from the Universidade Mackenzie (1965), completed a master's and doctorate in Science from the Fundação Escola de Sociologia e Política de São Paulo (1977-79). He was a professor at the Faculty of Architecture, Arts and Communication at Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp) and from 1988 onwards, he began to work at the Universidade de São Paulo (USP), where he applied, in 2002, for the position of Full Professor. He is currently dedicated to teaching and research as a professor of graduate programs at the School of Communications of USP, in addition to continuing his work as a photographer. His works are in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art (NY), George Eastman House (Rochester), Smithsonian Institution (Washington), Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris, Museu de Arte de São Paulo, Museu de Arte Contemporânea of USP, Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo; Centro de la Imagen (Mexico) among other institutions.
Kossoy is the author of Viagem pelo fantástico; Hercule Florence, the Isolated Discovery of Photography in Brazil (with editions in Spanish, German, French and English); Origens e expansão da fotografia no Brasil: século XIX; Album de photographias do estado de São Paulo 1892: estudo crítico; São Paulo, 1900; Dicionário histórico-fotográfico brasileiro; Fotografia e história; Realidades e ficções na trama fotográfica; Os tempos da fotografia: o efêmero e o perpétuo; Um olhar sobre o Brasil: a fotografia na construção da imagem da nação (coord.); Lo Efímero y lo Perpetuo en la Imagen Fotográfica. He is also co-author, with Maria Luiza Tucci Carneiro, of: O olhar europeu: o negro na iconografia brasileira do século XIX and A imprensa confiscada pelo Deops-SP (1924-1954), among other books.
In this interview, Boris Kossoy presents us with his personal motivations and the cultural environment in which he developed his research and reflections on images, in particular photographic ones; discusses the relationship between his work as a photographer and his work as a researcher and contextualizes the moment when photography gained recognition and space in public policies, with emphasis on the conservation and preservation of photographic collections.
