Jersey Archives was established to be a part of Jersey Heritage in 1993. Jersey Archives purpose is to preserve the written and unique heritage of Jersey so that future generations can use the archival materials to learn both the history of the island and their family heritage. Since 1993 Jersey Archives has collected over 300,000 archival records from public and private establishments. 180,000 peoples records.

Items within the Archive Include:

Church records, Official States of Jersey records, Records from clubs and associations, Business records, General records, private records, maps of Jersey. Charters, Correspondence to and from the States of Jersey, Occupation registration cards, German solider records, Red Cross letters, Artwork & Portraits, Letters sent after the Liberation, Photo albums of the Liberation.

Nowadays we carry archives in our pockets without thinking of their importance? Why do we keep them on a drive we rarely look through if ‘they mean so much to us’. Archives historically are used for storing images and documents that can teach present and future generations about lifestyles and families. David Bates, a theorist, referred to this by saying: ‘…no longer are photogenic archives merely filled with dusty boxes…’ since ‘digitisation of photographic images online has also generated new networks’. By storing images on a phone or laptop does make photography more accessible to a global demographic, but does this therefore defeat the idea of capturing the importance of moments.

Archives are used for research, however since these archival images are ageing, they can be reviewed and give an impression of living in the past. Useful for photographers when compiling research to be able to have the physical imagery to hold and look at in detail. This can help identify contrasts and similarities within modern and dated photography.

Archives play the important role of identifying past mistakes that can be prevented from repeating themselves using our knowledge from the pre-occured. Nostalgia now playing a big part in society with people reverting back previous fashion,photography and arts, with trends returning due to their pure admiration, for example, film photography becoming a lot more accesible and mainstream for people to fit this new found ‘aesthetic’. Archives take value in preserving the loved to be again loved by a relative or student wanting to expand their vast knowledge.

Société Jersiaise, a local archive that contains many images and documents from jersey’s past. This specific archive is very important as it allows the general public familiarise themselves with either local or personal history. Personal history records including birth/death certificates, marriage registration records, house agreement documents and many more hidden treasures you can relate your roots back to.

Personally, Archives has broadened my horizons of new ways to collect and gather resources for personal and academic use. Archives have shown me the responsibility we all have to leave behind a legacy and journey that future generations could benefit from, and taught me to further care for my general and editorial photographs so generations to come have something to reflect and appreciate.

I wanted to practice in the making of a Zine and how to create a narrative appropriately. For this Zine I focused on the aftermath of the Occupation through archival images of Jersey’s Liberation.

I printed out 4 images doubled sided so that I could create a flip book, and bound them together with poorly coloured in red masking tape.

Narrative photography appears everywhere from newspapers to magazines. Most articles come with at least a few pictures. The better those pictures, the more compelling the story. Using a single photo, or collection of connected photos, is about more than technical skill. Knowing how to focus and expose your photographs well is only the beginning. Photographs have a unique ability to convey a message and tell a story, whether that be something obvious, such as the beauty of a flower or the celebration of a holiday, or something more complex and abstract. At first glance, the photograph is merely a way to document a single moment in time. First glances can be deceptive, however, as how a photograph is crafted has a significant impact on how a viewer interprets it. The way a photographer chooses to use the tools in his or her camera and creative “toolbox” can dictate whether an image effectively tells a story and leaves the viewer with impression beyond the obvious.

Narrative photography is the idea that an image or a series of images can be used to tell a story or create a narrative. A narrative is an account of an event or a moment in time, which makes photography the perfect medium for constructing narratives. 

As the acclaimed documentary photographer David Campbell once wrote, “In photography, narrative is related to the idea of context. No matter how complete or comprehensive a narrative appears, it will always be the product of including some elements and excluding others. Inclusion/exclusion is part of what construction is all about, but knowing what is best included or excluded requires an understanding of context. And an understanding of context requires visual storytellers to be highly proficient researchers.”

Three WordsEruption of Calm

A Sentence Showing the stillness of a once kinetic site of war

Paragraph The once rife with ammunition coasts of Jersey currently sat undisturbed will be presented in a way reflecting how still and silent these concrete structures are surrendered. However, I will also show how remains have been disturbed by either nature or humans. Graffiti and rubbish disordering historical moments impacting forthcoming generations and them missing out in immersing themselves in the material of war.

Noémie Goudal

Noémie Goudal is a French artist who graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2010 with an MA in Photography and lives and works between Paris and London. Noémie Goudal’s practice is an investigation into photographs and films as dialectical images, wherein close proximities of truth and fiction, real and imagined offer new perspectives into the photographic canvas. The artist questions the potential of the image as a whole, reconstructing its layers and possibilities of extension, through landscapes’ installations.

Her series ‘Observatories’ is images of German artists Bernd et Hilla Becher, whose interest is focused on industrial buildings with objective black and white photographs. Noémie Goudal’s work shows utopian architectures without spaces nor time. It’s an encounter between realistic documentary images and dreamy illusion. She has used methods that blend traditional photographic technique with physical manipulation to create imagined architecture made with paper and scotch in real landscapes.

A zine (pronounced zeen) is an independently or self-published booklet, often created by physically cutting and gluing text and images together onto a master flat for photocopying, but it is also common to produce the master by typing and formatting pages on a computer. The publication is usually folded and stapled.
Historically, zines have been around since 1776 when Thomas Paine self-published Common Sense and used it as an instrument in promoting the ideas that contributed to the U.S. War for Independence. Just a perfect example to demonstrate the free spirit of zine culture.

Within class, we were also shown examples of photography zines and newspaper collections to understand the composition of images, how colour schemes matter to show either contrast or resemble and that the shapes and space used must be purposeful, otherwise it won’t carry on the narrative.

I focused on the zine ‘Life here is Serious – The Sochi Project Sketchbook series’. I was drawn to this zine because of the composition of the images, and the actual images themselves. The images had minimalistic backgrounds making the portraits and details of the model’s face the centre focus.

Photomontage is a type of collage art. It is composed primarily of photographs or fragments of photographs in order to direct the viewer’s mind toward specific connections. The pieces are often constructed to convey a message, whether that be a commentary on political, social, or other issues. When done correctly, they can have a dramatic impact.

There are many ways that a photomontage can be constructed. Quite often, photographs, newspaper and magazine clippings, and other papers are glued onto a surface, giving the work a real collage feel. Other artists may combine photos in the darkroom or camera and in modern photographic art, it’s very common for the images to be created digitally.

We were given the task of creating our own ‘cut and paste’ photo montages. This meant printing out our preferred images of primary and secondary sources, then overlaying and cutting out the images.

The Société Jersiaise is a Jersey archive which preserves Jersey’s history. Amongst many objects, they house many images that depict Jersey’s occupation during WW2. In the archive you can find many images taken by both German soldiers and Jersey people.

The Société was founded by a group of jersey individuals who were keen on jersey’s history and wanted to make sure it was kept. The Société then grew to include the founding of a museum, and the purchasing archaeological sites in order to preserve and present them. Some sights now owned by the Société Jersiaise are La Hougue Bie and La Cotte de Saint-Brélade.

The archive was formed in 1873, and in 1877 they announced that they had aims of opening a museum. The archive contains over 100,000 images from the mid 1840s, to today. Since Britain and France were both known for the development of photography, Jersey (located between the two) has a rich history in photography. On the 9th of May 1840, photography arrived in Jersey, and the archive contains works by photographers such as Thomas Sutton and William Collie.

We then spent the majority of the time looking through many collections of images, both from the archive and private collectors, from the occupation of Jersey. We were able to see many photos taken by both Jersey and German photographers, which was very interesting as it meant we were able to see two different perspectives of the occupation. After choosing our favourite images, we then recorded the reference numbers so that the archive were able to provide us with the digital version you can see in the gallery to the right.

We spent some time learning about narratives. A narrative is the idea that a group of images are able to tell an audience a story. We were given a selection of copies of archive images so that we were able to attempt our own narratives in groups. This was a helpful task as it aided me in realizing that sometimes, less images may be better than more.

Also during the day, we were given the task of taking pictures of things in and around town that related to the jersey occupation. My approach to this was how during the occupation, gold and leather was taken from islanders and made use elsewhere. Whether it be their gold teeth or worn out shoes, it was all removed from their possession. Correlating to this, I went around town and photographed second hand shoes and rings, showing how the once loved can be passed on for other purposes.

We also had the task of ordering Archival images to create a narrative; whether it be a story or just in chronological order. Within my group we ordered the images (from left to right) into 3 sections. Section 1 consisted of ‘Sea, Beach and Land’ (how the island was invaded), section 2 focused on the narrative of one soldier, then section 3 was a general narrative of the occupation and its effect on the island.