The paper investigates the shifting role of photography in the construction of collective cultural memory. It focuses on urban photography in Ghent, Belgium, at two particular periods of time. The paper is situated within the framework of the exhibition Edmond Sacré. Portrait of a City, curated by Ghent University in STAM (Ghent city museum), and a parallel artistic research project at the School of Arts at Ghent University College (2011-2012). At the turn of the XX century, new monumental squares and historicizing architecture created a new sense of history rooted in Flemish patriotism, especially in the run-up to the 1913 Ghent World Fair. The photographer Edmond Sacré created canonical images of the renewed city centre that went around the world for the promotion of the World Fair. Since the 1970s, the role of photography in the construction of cultural memory in Ghent has altered. In contrast to Sacré, photographers of the late XX and early XXI century have created a more complex image of the city. A number of contemporary photographers who worked on the Wondelgemse Meersen, a brownfield site north of the city centre, depicted the site as the locus of marginalised social groups who did not find their place in the historical city centre. The paper investigates if and how these photographers contribute to a different kind of cultural memory related to ephemeral places and practices in contrast to Sacré’s image of Ghent.