Background

• Launched by Societe Jersiaise Photographic Archive in 2011
• Promote contemporary photography through ongoing programme of exhibitions, educations and commissions
• Connecting past with present
  • Archives with contemporary photography

 

Islandness

• Starting a debate about how we represent our island through photography
  • Syvret suggests that ‘Islandness’ is not an open debate within Island life and community
• Island culture = unique from continental views
• Photographers on an island restricted in terms of context, audience and marketing
• Project = first in Jersey of its kind: makes the people of Jersey question and embrace unique position of living on an island
• ‘Archisle’ has potential to grow into worldwide project
  • Jersey host island games 2015: ‘inter-island lock in’ event organised – promoting the Archisle project to a wide audience who share in the concern of ‘Islandness’
• International Photographer in Residence Programme: Establishing a relationship between local and international photographers

 

Pioneers of Photography in Jersey

Henry Mullins

• English Photographer
• Studio in Royal Square (1948-73)
• Took over 9,000 portraits of islanders
  • Placed and identified in grid configurations based on social status
  • Interesting record of life in Jersey in Victorian times
  •  Use of photo archives as objective historical documentation

Mullins: Subject, Mr Aubin

 

Mullins: Subject, Mr Bertram

 

William Collie

• Scottish Photographer
• Experimented with proto-documentary methods
• Creation of some of the earliest portraits of working class people in existence
• Some of his images made it into 2007 exhibition of European Photography at Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

 

Photography during Nazi Occupation

• Nazi’s made every Islander be photographed:
  • Archive of 31,000 I.D. cards collected
• Public Photography banned
  • Claude Cahun: Anti-Nazi activist
    • Photographed islanders as an act of resistance
  • Photographs taken during occupation
    • Explore views of rebellious counter-culture; form of resistance

Post War Photography

• Recent photography is Jersey lacking specific focus and context. Archisle wants to change this
• Jersey change over the course of century
  • 20^th Century = farming
  • 21^st Century = finance
• Archisle – 125 Year Project in partnership with JEP
  • Selection of images from Jersey’s largest 20^th Century Photographic Archive
  • Trying to promote the use of the archives in an interactive exhibition
  • Capturing Jersey’s progression from a first, second to third island

21 st Century Photography

• Voice of the Jersey people is important
• Jersey Archisle wants to promote the invention of specific archives looking into various aspects of Jersey life
  • Archisle Contemporary Photography Collection
  • JEP: form of contemporary photographic record. Hence its relationship with Jersey Archives
    • JEP = approximately 160,000 photos on-line in 11 categories

 

 

Summary

• Identities of subjects and photographers absent in recent contemporary archives
• Raising awareness of local photographers
• Engage photographers with the culture of Jersey to create diverse an incisive visual archive

 

Link to the Official Archisle Website

http://www.archisle.org.je/