An archive is a place in which various forms of primary sources for information are stored. This can be in the form of photographs, letters, notes and various other sources. These records are stored as evidence that an event occurred often including an explanation of how these events happened and or why usually for personal or financial reasons. These records are generally accepted to be documents that have been naturally generated as part of various commercial, administrative or regal purposes. Archives make their distinction from libraries in the sense that the documents contained in an archive are typically unique and unpublished documents. As such, archives tend to act as a central location for the storage of various memories and cultures by giving an insight into the lives of those involved with the events surrounding the various documents stored. Photography within archives serves both a documentative and artistic purpose. Photo’s initial take for an artistic purpose can be used as documentation of the artists lives/ surroundings in a different time.
The use of archival imagery will allow me to improve my personal study as it helps give a better insight into the lives of those in the occupation and the time period as a whole. The archival imagery provides a primary source for research about the topic at hand. The use of archives is a resourceful method of research as archives primarily store documentation that isn’t recorded elsewhere, as such it provides fast access to information that would otherwise take much longer to find through secondary sources of information.
An archive is a collection of documents usually consisting of
very different types of documents such as photographs, paintings and other
written documents. There are different types of archives that people keep
publicly and privately. Private archives are usually used to show family
history and keep a record of a specific family. Whereas public archives tend to
show a broader history of where the archive was made. These are used to allow
newer generations of people get a greater understanding of the events that may
have happened to their families or to the place they live. They function
through collections of items such as legal documents and photographs from a
period in history to give a broad insight of what it was like to live back then
as well as more personal things such as diaries to show what a specific persons
life was like. New items can be handed in to a lot of archives if they are
specifically items from history, and historical areas that are covered in that
archive.
Archives act as repositories of memory as they provide
reliable evidence of past events and allow us to deeply examine peoples
personal and collective view of how an area was like in a past time. Archives also
split off different parts of history into different sections and sub-sections
so that if you want to see a specific part of history, you can narrow down your
search to only photography from then or different types of documents from them.
They normally have cultural connections to the place the archive is from and
can show how our culture has been shaped and changed since then.
Photography can perform a double role within archives. Not only can they display someone’s life or how the world was, through the informative use of documentary photography, this being the main reason for a lot of the photography in war archives. This type of photography will usually be very clear and understandable as this is the reason it was created. The other way photography can be used is through the artistic side of it, with people creating photography specifically tailored towards showing something they want to show which may not have a link to what was happening at the time and could just be separate. Though, a lot of the time photography links to things happening at the time such as war, creating a double role by showing it in either in an explicit or implicit way by creating an obvious or distant link to an event happening, and producing it in their own artistic way.
David Bate’s text allows us to see how he thinks about
archives will be used with museums as they have a collection of documents and
old artifacts which will allow museums to create displays of particular
historical events and how culture has changed, with very accurate information
on them. In his text he refers to museums use of archives as a “vast repository
aiming to construct a particular story.”
This is him saying that he believes museums should be creating either a
never-ending story of an area or showing the story of a particular area through
a certain event. In Bate’s text he also talks about Fenton, hired in 1854 to
document the artifacts within the British Museum through photography and to
show what it would have been like to see the items within the Museum in the Victorian
era. The images are said to “evoke a ‘pastness’”. This shows that they have
been taken in a way to make the people look at them and see the past through a barrier
rather than just see a place within the photos.
For my own personal study. I am going to look at the Occupation of Jersey and how it has really changed and developed the island into something completely different than what it could be. Through the landscape of the island changing due to the bunkers and historical monuments left behind from the war and the people who lived on the island through the war and how they lived during the war. The most obvious and easy part of this to see is the bunkers and war tunnels left behind from the war, and how parts of them have been rebuilt such as the guns and the bunkers have been uncovered since they were filled in after the war. The archived material from the time will also help me out to see how people lived and what people had to sacrifice throughout the war, through the use of different peoples personal diary entries or documentation such as photographs from the time, I should be able to get a bigger feel of what it would be like to live back then and may help me stage some photographs a lot more easily. The use of the archive will also give me an in-depth insight to the other things that happened in the war such as the use of slaves to build bunkers and other fortifications, and how bunkers have been eroding and falling apart over time due to the length of time they’ve been around.
Looking at the photographs and some other documents from the
archive has given me a much wider view of what everything looked like in the days
of the occupation of Jersey. Not only how the bunkers used to look, before
being uncovered and rebuilt, but how different parts of St. Helier looked before
the war, which I can use to compare to how it is now. This will allow me to get
a bigger understanding of how some things have changed within the island over
the past seventy-five years.
In conclusion, archives serve a purpose to allow people to
see how things have changed over time in an area, and to display history
accurately to newer generations of people. They can preserve peoples artistic work,
different types of photography and documents through the use of newer methods such
as digitalisation and placing plastic covers over the documents. I have learnt
about the importance of archives and from seeing images from the archive I have
seen that these images show a glimpse into people’s lives and how things were in
the occupation.
The project Dans le Noir (in the dark) is focused on a diary of a woman called Odette Brefort who lived under German Occupation in Deauville during World War 2. Odette was a young woman who had become a member of the French resistance. Lynda Laird chose to use just one day of her diary, the day of the D Day landings, 6thJune 1994. She used her diary entry and photographed the German surveillance bunkers along the Normandy coast.
She chose to photograph them in infrared film which was a technology created by military in World War 2 to detect camouflage, so it picks up a visual spectrum invisible to the naked eye showing up anything that’s dead as black and anything alive as pinks and reds. Something the German soldiers did was paint trees onto the buildings and bunkers they occupied along the coast to disguise them, but this film exposes it.
Lynda Laird printed the infrared images onto silk and stitched them around the edges, a reference to another technology that was first used in WW2 where silk escape maps were stitched inside the paratrooper’s uniforms. She also found some drawings that Odette had made. They were maps informing on the Germans positioning throughout Deauville and the nearby town Trouville that she sent to the Resistance in Paris. These also formed part of the Installation.
Odette’s map, 1944
Extract from Odette’s diary:
Oh, what a night! My little head is all shell-shocked. Since midnight it’s been impossible to sleep: the humming from planes, the anti-aircraft bombs, the machine gun noise. I went downstairs because I couldn’t sleep and after 15 minutes it went quiet. Thinking it would be better, I went back to bed. What a mistake! All night, the humming from planes, it was non-stop. What a joy when waking this morning, someone announces there was a landing at Dives. At 8.20am a bomb falls on the Printemps store, another one on the Normandy. By rule we don’t have the right to leave Deauville, or to ride our bicycles. The weather remained foggy until midday, the sun shone from 4pm. It must be the English who brought the clouds! The defence volunteers will be able to move freely tonight. Around 6pm, what a tremendous bang! it is the Mont Canisy. The English navy must have blown up a large artillery battery that was shooting at them. It had been deafening us since this morning. I think the shot hit the target, as we can’t hear a thing anymore. What on earth will happen to us when the Navy and Air Force take care of our region? There is no electricity. Deauville is in the dark. —Odette Brefort, 6 June 1944
It is important that you develop your own set of images and experiments with different photographic techniques, approaches and styles to create more visual material that you can edit from in your final sequence of images as you work towards creating your ‘zine.
Essentially we want you to develop your own visual language and create a unique set of sequenced images that reflects on how you respond to Bunker Archaeology and The Atlantic Wall.
Experiment 1: CROPPING – complete by Thurs 27th June Using cropping tool only begin to make some radical changes by selecting areas of your images for a different visual impact. Produce at least 3 different crops for 6 images.
CROPPING can create a sense of impact and drama in an image, as well as fine-tune the composition. However…cropping can also de-contextualise a subject within the frame. This can be used to great effect…or can change the nature of an image radically.
One of the founding fathers of Documentary Photography Walker Evans used cropping as part of his work. Another pioneer of the photo-essay, W. Eugene Smith also experimented with cropping is his picture-stories
Walkers Evans and Labour AnonymousW. Eugene Smith and Jazz Loft Project
Experiment 2: COLOUR > B&W ADJUSTMENTS complete by Thurs 27 June Using your tools such as White Balance / Exposure / Levels / Curves / Brightness /Contrasts / Colour Balance / Hue / Saturation / Colour overlay / double or multiple exposure and make radical changes to the overall aesthetic of the images. Try and adjust images according to your visceral quality – relating to your deep inward feelings rather than how something looks! Produce 3 different adjustments with images
Experiment 3: MONTAGE > COMPOSITE IMAGES complete by Thurs 27 June Using your skills in Photoshop that you learned at AS begin to work with different montage / collage / cut ‘n’ past/ composite / Layers / Masks / Opacity / Blending modes / Brush techniques using both DIGITAL and ANALOGUE methodologies.
1. Select 5 images from your bunker shoots and produce at least 3 different collages combining two or more images / people / landscapes / text / typography / colour / shapes / textures/
2. Combine your images with images from the Photo-Archive that relate to the Occupation / Liberation of Jersey. Go to the folder below and choose 5 images that you selected on our research day at Societe Jersiaise.
M:\Departments\Photography\Students\Occupation of Jersey
3. Newspaper cuttings: Select 3 photocopies from newspaper cuttings from the JEP that relates to the subject of Occupation. Combine these with either your own images and/or archive images following the same instructions as above.
4. Print out 1 of your own images and 1 archive images on the Laserjet Printer and manipulate the prints by destroying it in 5 different ways and re-configure using scissors / tape / cut-n-paste / glue. Try and manipulate the printed images using your body / hand/ face etc .
JUXTAPOSE AND OVERLAY YOUR IMAGES—SUPERIMPOSE OTHER IMAGES, AND CUT-N-PASTE USING SCISSORS, TAPE, GLUE ETC…
Look at Jonny Briggs for visual inspiration Read more here
ONCE YOU HAVE MADE A SET OF EXPERIMENTS USING VARIOUS TECHNIQUES YOU MUST MAKE AT LEAST 1 X BLOG POST THAT SHOWS YOUR DEVELOPMENT OF IDEAS—INCLUDE YOUR INFLUENCES AND FINAL OUTCOMES
RE-VISIT AND RE-SHOOT – complete by Mon 1 July
Here are few things to consider for your second shoot
Revisit a suitable location and make another shoot. Reflect on your current sequence of images and think about what is missing, or what you need to photograph to add value to the story you are trying to communicate.
Collect ephemera / found objects and photograph them in-situ – how and where you found them and also re-photograph the objects as a still-life at home setting up up your own mini-studio or use Photo-studio in school.
Record sounds or video as another visual layer / audio ambience that you could incorporate into your project e.g select individual frames from video and edit as a sequence in a time line. Use audio to record conversation with people you meet or use it as dictaphone to record your own feelings in a diary form.
Duane MichaelsWind through the Pines 1985, 1991 Hamish Fulton
Here are a few pointers – but not exclusive – please add your own thoughts/ ideas/ concepts/ brainstorm etc.
Abstract visions…alternative, “wrong” photographs
Formalism…line, shape, pattern, tone, colour etc
Objects | Ephemera (litter and debris)
Make use of your senses : see , hear ,taste, smell, touch
Old vs New vs Development
Good vs bad…subjective approach
Form vs function
Juxtaposition | contrasts | diversity
Unconventional beauty
Typography and graphics
Aerial Imagery / Satellite / Surveillance
Angles | Viewpoints
Poetic / personal point of view
Roads / paths/ walkways
Open space / Public realm
Remember : a sense of risk and an opportunity to go beyond the norm or unexpected is encouraged.
As my project is called Bunker Archaeology, I decided to do more research into photographers who have also focused their work around documenting bunkers and war relics, in order to take inspiration from them that I can use in my own work.
The first photographer that I researched was Jonathan Andrew, a UK born photographer who’s Abandoned WWII Bunker series has showcased a range of war relics, left over from the second world war:
Andrews project has inspired me in my own work, as his approach towards taking images with high levels of contrast, using mainly dark colours and textures to emphasise the harsh shapes of the bunkers. As well as displaying these structures as harsh and menacing, the use of texture and dark colour palette also helps to reflect the dark atmosphere and hopeless attitudes that WWII brought about, and thus I believe the use of shadows and harsh texture is fitting. Furthermore, I feel like Andrew’s use of a small amount of light highlighting certain areas of the bunkers is effective, as it allows for contrast between shadows and lighter areas, which in turn makes the images seem even more menacing, and highlights that each structure stands alone, representing the left overs from one of the most deadly wars in human history.
I took inspiration from Andrew, as I feel that during y own project, I will be editing images in order to emphasise the texture of the images. which I feel will give the images a harsher appearance, thus reflecting the harsh atmosphere of the occupation (during which the structures were built). Furthermore, I will be taking inspiration from Andrew’s work in terms of his use of shade and light, and will be using the same concept during my editing process, in which I will make some images black and white in order to show the contrast between light and dark areas, allowing shadows to appear darker and more menacing, while also allowing the images to remain timeless due to the lack of colour, and thus they can easily be associated with the time period in which the original bunkers/war structures were built.
After finalizing and editing my final images, I re-visited the work of Jonathan Andrews to compare it to my own, and found that I had taken inspiration from a range of his images, especially with aspects such as the texture and contrasting colours:
For the above images, mine are seen on the left, and Andrew’s on the right. There are similarities between the images in terms of texture, colour themes and overall atmospheres (harsh, cold and menacing).
Link to Jonathan Andrew’s Bunker Project: www.jonathanandrewphotography.com/Projects/WWII-Relics/9
Noirmont Point and a substantial part of the headland behind it was acquired by the States in 1950 as the Island’s war memorial, but sadly very few Jersey residents today are aware of this. It is a strange irony given its status as a memorial of a war in which Jersey was occupied by the Germans for five years, that probably the main reason for visiting the headland is to view the restored bunkers and gun emplacements of Batterie Lothringen, the only naval coastal artillery battery in the island and part of Hitler’s infamous Atlantic Wall. If nothing else, however, the purchase has ensured that this headland, which forms the western end of St Aubin’s Bay, remains one of the few relatively unspoilt areas of the south coast of the island, with the exception of the concrete structures, which for many years were left undisturbed as a lasting memory of the dark days of the German Occupation.
More recently they have been restored by members of the Channel Islands Occupation Society with interior displays which show what they would have been like when they were built to defend the island against any attempt by the British to recapture it.
In Jèrriais (the ‘local’ language of Jersey) the name is Nièrmont. The French form of the name follows the Jèrriais rule of the colour adjective preceding the noun: Noirmont. Both forms translate into English as the ‘Black Mount’.
Archives are accumulations of of historical records. An archives purpose is to conserve artifacts like document. photography and artwork. They differ from a library because they hold both published and unpublished documents. A person who works in archives is called an archivist. The study and practice of organizing, preserving, and providing access to information and materials in archives is called archival science. Archives are accumulations of of historical records. An archives purpose is to conserve artifacts like document. photography and artwork. They differ from a library because they hold both published and unpublished documents. A person who works in archives is called an archivist. The study and practice of organizing, preserving, and providing access to information and materials in archives is called archival science. Archives are accumulations of of historical records. An archives purpose is to conserve artifacts like document. photography and artwork. They differ from a library because they hold both published and unpublished documents. A person who works in archives is called an archivist. The study and practice of organizing, preserving, and providing access to information and materials in archives is called archival science.
Photography plays a double role in archives, one being the visual imagery and two being the story, they act as a narrative. Although a photograph is an image it also tells a story and provides evidence to historical narrative. Roger Fenton was mentioned in David Bate’s extract named ‘Archives, Networks and Narratives’, it talks about how archives create an historical narrative via the memories savored in the artifacts. He was one of the first war photographers, he was born in 1819 into a Lancashire merchant family. He first started out being interested in art and gaining a degree in the subject but later was became intrigued by the new technology of photography after having seen early examples at ‘The Great Exhibition’ in 1851. In 1854 he became the British museums first photographer by documenting its artifacts, similarly to how an archive collects artifacts. Fenton started as a photographer of cuneiform tablets which are one of the earliest systems of writing invented by the Sumerians, once he started working for the British Museum he began to take pictures of other antiques. His time at the museum ended when money became scarce. In David Bate’s extract he talks about how photos act as a collected artifacts that we display in museums but also how a single photo is a form of archive in its own way. A quote from Bate’s extract that really stands out to me is ‘Archive photographs not only record objects and events, they also produce a meta-archive, with meanings that can be mobilised in other times and new contexts.’ I feel this highlights the idea of the double role of archives, on the surface they are just a place to preserve documents but the more you explore them, the more you find meaning behind the photos being stored.
Sadly, I feel that in the future archives won’t be so common because social media is such a big part of our lives and we share picture with everyone constantly whether it be on snapchat or instagram etc. Nowadays we just save our pictures onto the cloud to look back to in the future to remember old times. I feel as if my generation has luckily just missed the whole digital age as I do have physical film camera photos of me as a young child but my youngest siblings don’t really have any printed pictures, they are all on phones. Physically having a photo to hold in my opinion is more nostalgic and sentimental, I don’t feel that having photos on my camera roll hold as much value as a paper photo does.
Archival material will help to enrich my personal study by giving me a more in depth idea into the types of photography in the occupation, what the photographers at the time thought we essential to capture as a photo. It also highlights the importance of preserving and storing these images as a reminder of the Islands past and how much we have developed photography technology and how much the landscape has changed. For instance I will be able to identify certain landscapes in Jersey when they were in the occupation and compare tit to how it currently looks. As well as that it could provide insight into my family history and how they lived during the occupation in Jersey, this interests me as I want to know more personally about experiences along with photography, I think it would be useful to research into peoples first hand accounts of what Jersey was like in the occupation, these types of documents can be found in the Jersey Heritage Archives.Seeing raw photos from the time of Jersey’s occupation gives you more an insight into what photography was like back then, the techniques, the focal points, the people.
Looking at the archives was resourceful because it made me aware of the archive system, how it works and how you can obtain the documents for personal usage. Ir’s also just useful to know that we can as students use the photos as references to our work as I was previously unaware we could do so.
To conclude I have learnt from the trip what its like to conserve documents and the importance they hold to keeping Jersey’s history alive. Also that you don’t just put the photos in a box and leave them be, it actually involves maintenance to preserve them, I was unaware that the Societe Jeraise even existed so I have discovered a useful resource for this project. Overall I have just gained more of an appreciation for archives, even though I’m not hugely into history it is intriguing to see what Jersey used to be like and how photographers of that time used what they had to their advantage to capture the harsh truth of the occupation, in my opinion they had real guts for what they did, it can’t have been easy to do that for a living in such sad and prejudice times. Without these photographers we wouldn’t have the simplistic idea of what Jersey used to look like, we would only be able to assume and interpret. It’s very helpful for photographers these days to take old sources and base their work on them for inspiration.
Now initially the first question I should be asking is, what an archive is; well an archive is a collection of historical documents or records providing information about a place, institution or group of people. In this case The Jersey Occupation will be the main area of concentration when considering artist and time period (1940-1945). The particular archive I will be interested in is called Societe Jersiaise’ in which I visited on the 4th of June, this helped provide me with a first-hand understanding of what an archive and how to approach them. The Société Jersiaise was founded in January 1873 by a small number of prominent Islanders who were interested in the study of the history, the language and the antiquities of Jersey. Membership grew quickly and the aims of the new society soon widened to include the publication of historical documents, the founding of a Museum, and the study of the Island’s natural history. The first Bulletin Annuel was issued in 1875 and continues to be the main record of our activities. It was evident that the clear purpose of this archive was to hold Jersey’s most treasured historical imagery and documents dating way back to the Second World War, and originates from the beginning to the end of the war pretty much creating its own story to tell and highlighting the importance of the event, alongside the impact it had on Jersey and the impact it will always have on Jersey. The actual practice of keeping official document is an extremely old ritual dating all the way back to the third and second millennia BC in sites like Ebla, Mari and Pylos, this gives a clear understanding of the significance an archive has on the current historical phenomenon. Archives work in the way of storing photos and document on a computer but in this instance it’s all original copy’s carefully kept away and stored, some so precious they are to only be touched with white fabric clothes to avoid finger marks being left behind on a possible major historical in detail photograph and document. So in the case of the Societe Jersiaise it stores hundred and even thousands of images dating although back to when the archive first opened in 1873. However the period we are interested is much more recent, it still hold a large percentage of images and documents stored in this particular archive when in concern with the Second World War. When we look at all these images being stored, its gets us thinking that clearly there are some historical and significant photographers to thanks for the documentation that has helped us to helped understand and develop our understanding of this particular time frame in Jersey, for example, William Collie. William Collie was most likely to be one of the original photographers to use Fox Talbot’s calotype process in Jersey. Linking some of his unrelated previous work that can be found in exhibition at the Musee Dorsay in Paris, first presented in 2008. Collie was born in 1810 in Scotland and moved to jersey just before 1850 to peruse a business before diverting his work to art, but given his undoubtedly significant position in the beginning years of British photography, incredibly he was not very well known and there is little evidence of his work. Alongside many earlier photographers he started his work as a portrait painter leading onto photographic work, which lead his to produce one of his more famous pieces he made in a series of genre calotype portraits depicting ‘French and Jersey Market Woman’ which has an extremely positive response by the photography critic of the Art Union in June 1847, later being exhibited at the London Great Exhibition in 1851. When in relation to the Société Jersiaise, there is a total of 157 photographs stored by William Collie, although none in which can be viewed online, this could be due to the oldness of the images which have been all said to be the copyright of the Royal Photographic Society. One of those listed in the Société Jersiaise Photographic Archive is a photograph of Elie Jean Filleul, who died aged 102 in 1851. Most of the recorded images in the archive are listed as portrait however there are around four which are presented as landscapes of Jersey, its said that they feature Mont Orgueil Castle, Gorey, Midvale Road and houses along Queens road all with a date around 1845-1850, clearly holding a historical value. Alongside William Collide being an extremely iconic historical photographer, we also have a man named Albert Smith. Albert Smith was from Liverpool and moved to Jersey in 1892 to start business work, and then turned to photography. It said that thousands of his images survive as glass plate negatives, with his main subjects being known to either be portraits or cattle portraits that were produced in to post cards bought by many. As well as him and his staff strongly working on commissions they also looked in to jersey’s island life capture significant scenes which they believed to portray the beauty of the island itself. It’s reported that around 3300 of Albert Smiths images are stored at the Societe Jersiaise, and that 2000 images of his can be reached online. Although Albert Smith’s photographs were made for the public to purchase and in addition to those in a negative format in the Societe Jersiaise archive there is undoubtedly many of his photographs circulating the island and around the world. These two photographs hold a key importance in the history of the Jersey archive and it is important that their work continues on. From all this research has had given a much better understanding to the importance of an archive and has lead me to be interested to explore my own history. This will help me with my project as it will give me the opportunity to really relate to the idea of family history and the changes that have happened to me and the world. I would like to think that by looking at my own image it will help provide a type of style and context that I can continue forward in my personal study, leading to a better appreciation for the overall project- this is extremely important to me as it will help develop my skill and will grow my thought to look outside the box for inspiration. By looking into more depth about archives it has lead me to have a higher appreciation and understanding for history and the preciousness it holds to many islanders and families, it has also given me the opportunity to further my knowledge and look more deeply in to my personal study’s and where I would like to move forward with my project in to the Occupation. This is essential as it will help focus my images and ideas to achieve the best outcome I can get through the history of Jersey and the support that can be reached at any point from the Societe Jersiaise.
Archives are a collection of historical documents (ie.
Photographs, letters, etc.) that are kept as a documentation of the people and
events that have taken place throughout history.
What are their purpose?
Public archives are available for use by general public.
Many archives require a small fee if an individual requires a copy of an
archive document. Archive materials may be used for a number of different reasons.
For example, research into one’s family history or inspiration and research
into a photography or history related project.
Private archives such as, personal photo albums, the camera
roll on a mobile phone or private documents such as, birth certificates, can be
used as a way to preserve memories of personal events with family and friends
and for future use for job applications or setting up bank accounts.
How do archives act as repositories of cultural memories of
the past?
Documents in an archive are typically stored in order of
their date, in alphabetical order and type of document. Each document has a
reference number which makes them easy to organise and locate of needed.
Physical documents such as, letters and photographs are often stored in acid
proof boxes and can only be handled with the use of gloves. This is to help
preserve the documents and prevent them from becoming damaged. It is important
to preserve archive documents as they are a vital part of the history of a
culture and its society.
In what way does photography perform a double role within
archives?
In terms of photography, archiving is incredibly important
as it holds two roles for photographers. Foremost, it is a generally a good
idea for a photographer to keep an archive of all of their images. This is so
that they can organise their images based on different projects. However,
archiving can be particularly helpful in showing how they have progressed as a
photographer. They can look back at old projects and look at what they did well
with and where they can improve for the next project.
Archives are also vital when to do research for an upcoming
project. Looking at archive images can provide inspiration and context to the
new project. This allows for a more thought out creative process and may even
take the project in a new direction that had previously been disregarded as un-useful.
How will looking at archival material enrich your personal
study?
I believe that the use of archive materials will be really beneficial
in regards to creating an informative personal study. The personal study is
going to be about my own personal and family archives. This is something that I
am looking forward to beginning research on as I hope to discover something
about my family history that I was perhaps previously unaware of or did not know
much about. Looking at old images will give me an insight into the things that
my parents and grandparents used to do when they were my age and will give me
the opportunity to compare them to what I do during my spare time.
In what way has looking at archives been a resourceful
exercise?
During the visit to the Société Jersiaise, the photography
classes were given the opportunity to look at archives images from the German
Occupation of the Channel Islands from 1940 to 1945 and discover more about how
archives work. Many of the archive
images that I looked at showed the Nazis integrating themselves into island
life. For example, there were several images that showed the German soldiers interacting
with the Islanders and even an image that showed a soldier purchasing a ‘German
to English’ dictionary. We were also given the chance to look at some the ‘Green
Books’ which contained information and detailed drawings and maps of all of the
Nazi fortifications, sea and air defences and landmines.
Personally, I found the trip very useful as it allowed me to
gather a greater understanding into how an archive functions, begin thinking about
how I would like my ‘Bunker Archaeology’ project to look like and finally
understand a little bit better how life was for Islanders under the Nazi rule.
What have you learned?
From this experience I have learned a considerable amount
more about archives and the role they play in preserving the history of a
culture and its people. I have also learnt how beneficial the use of archive
materials could potentially be for my ‘Bunker Archaeology’ project and my personal
investigation.
An archive is a collection of historical records or an actual place that they are located in. Archives contain documents which have been collected over a longitudinal period of time. These primary documents are then stored and used to showcase the function and or story of a particular person or organisation. Archives are used to allow us to gain a more in depth understanding of the historical factors at a particular moment in time, and act as a repertoire allowing us to reflect on the history of that specific place and time. Records stored within an archive is varied, from diaries, legal documents, financial documents to photographs and film. An archive can act as repositories of cultural memories of the past, as we are able to store reliable documents, which are memories of the past, which when we reflect on the documents will clearly show cultural memories. Although they are reliable, imagery is highly subjective which can lead to misinterpretation of the objects stored within an achive. Archival memory can be considered a social construct as they can show power of relationships in that society at that particular time in history.
Photography can perform as a double role within an archive as it visually showcases the person or organisation. Photographs can be used for both scientific purposes (images which are precise and detailed photographs of industrial events and processes. These photos can be used for monitoring industrial processes and allows us to view and analyse the change in the process. Within an archive this scientific purpose is useful as it allows us to see how a process or industrial event has changed from an archival image compared to a recent image of the same thing, allowing us to visually see a clear change) and artistic purposes (images which allows us to visually see the historic and cultural elements of the time and place at which the photograph was taken at. These photographs can almost tell stories which gives us insight into what life is like in that image and allows the imagination of the viewer to explore and interpret the photograph in a unique way.) which showcases the double role, of scientific and artistic purpose, which photographs have within a photo archive.
David Bate’s text explains how museums often use archives and collections of artefacts in order to display and present a particular cultural and or historical moment in time. Museums creates historical narratives of culture and can act as a repository of memories.
At the beginning of the text it talked about the ‘British Museum’ in London and how they only employed the first photographer, Roger Fenton, in 1854. Fenton captured images of the museum’s interior showcasing the artefacts, the reason behind this was to showcase what these artefacts looked like in the Victorian era, showing change and the historical values of the museum. The text says “The pictures themselves create an atmospheric space, with a kind of silence around the artefacts, a stillness of the historical museum.” This implies that the objects are said to have an “aura”, suggested by Walter Benjamin, which created a historical distance, outlining the importance of the historical factors in relation to the object. Fenton’s arhived images are still famous and are featured in museums to showcase the artefacts.
Another key artist mentioned within the text is Tracey Moffatt, who painted the series ‘Something More’ in 1989. In this series the paintings present a “fictionalised biographical account of a young Aboriginal woman’s desire to leave her rural life in the city.” In these images the background holds blurred figures in the background which are starring at the woman located in the foreground, the difference in appearance of the people helps to showcase the story and cultural factors within the paintings. Needless to say, the majority of the stories end in violence and or death. It is said that Moffatt’s early work within the series where based on personal memories, which makes her work a personal archive of personal memories presenting historical factors of her past.
Example of Moffatt’s Painting
Another key artist mentioned is Susan Hiller, who created hundreds of postcards of waves crashing onto the coasts around Britain, each postcards is presented differently through the experimentation of tinting, black and white and painting them. The postcards are then arranged into a grid format, showcasing an archival of “how a culture sees itself”. It is said that all the images work well together creating a lyrical display, as our eyes go round the frame following the waves crashing. Although the piece can be tranquil, the natural force of the sea begins to suggest a different viewpoint of force and power, which creates a link yo an emotional threat by a hostile person or idea. These methods and attitudes makes Hiller’s work an anthropologist or cultural archivist.
Susan Hiller’s photography
In a recent documentary on the BBC, Dr Gil Pasternak researched the photographic history of what family photographs say about Britain’s post-war social history. Within this they looked at issues concerning social class, gender and cultural background which affect the production, use and perceived meaning of a family portrait. They also looked at how the internet is changing the way photo archives are stored and used. Family Narratives where mainly shown through photo albums which showcased how precious some of the stories and memories where to the family. An important phrase told by Dr Gil read “These examples demonstrate how the development in photographic technology combined with local social history influenced the types of photographs they were able to capture, and therefore also the stories they were able to tell about themselves, their family and friends, their beliefs, interests, aspirations, and life in the UK more broadly.” They also said “In the era of smart technologies, family photographs no longer merely function as memories of the past, but they instead become active participants in the formation of our present experiences and in shaping the dynamics of family life.” This quote summaries the conclusions of the research and how modern day is shaping society and photography.
With the world constantly changing, and the future looking to be solely reliant on technology, it begins to suggest how archives will change and adapt to meet the requirements of the future. Many people share there images through social media, from facebook to instagram, which creates an online storage/archive of that person’s past, which allows others to reflect on their past and presents that person’s narrative in life. Images are much easier to store this way and are more cost effective, compared to printing them out, and accessible to everyone making this an ideal way for people to achieve their past. A limitation to using modern technology to create archives is the issues of loosing images, or if a social media sight was to shut down, due to this it can lead to an incomplete of completely lost photo archive, making material harder to find and less reliable.
To conclude, an archive is a key tool for contemporary photographers. They provide historical/cultural narratives which gives us insight in what life was like at that time and place. The documents stored within an archive varies but all still help to present a specific memory and provides useful insight. Archival material can enrich my personal study as the material will gives me insight into historical and cultural elements of the second world war, which enables me to think more carefully about what I am capturing and allows meaning to be presented within the images. Moreover, the narrative of the images tells the story of the war and the different aspects which will allow me to explore the story and the different aspects, which will provide a more well rounded project. In addition, archival material will be useful when I want to explore the memories of others in order to present their stories and will provide useful historical facts and stimulus’ to help develop my idea and knowledge of the war. In Jersey we have an archive called “Societe Jersiaise” which is a photographic archive containing roughly 80,000 images dating from the 1840s to present day. Due to the resources available to me should lead to an in-depth research into Jersey’s Second World War. In addition, a photographic achieve is a valuable source for contemporary photographers because of the idea “the best art understands a history to anticipate a future.” It also allows photographers to look at interpreting history in a new way to reveal a subjective narrative.
