Founded in 1873, by only a small group of Islanders, the Société Jersiaise holds around 35,000 historical images. Although it started with a small number of people interested in the study of history, language and antiques of Jersey, it soon grew a larger membership and the historical documents were published. In 1893 the museum became permanent and moved to 9 Pier Road. Now looked after and owned by Jersey Heritage, the collection is still growing. Their main mission is to make the Islands history available for people to see and admire, researching its history.
We visited the Société Jersiaise and got introduced to the people that look after all the archives. We got to see archival history of Elizabeth Castle, which was really interesting. It also inspired me to possibly use images from the archive, as well as letters, in our film. By learning about Jersey’s past, and seeing physical prints of the castle, we got to understand its history more in depth than just visiting a website. Over the years, images have become digitalised and we have become acclimated to online and digital presentations of photos. Learning about this emphasised how today’s society has no appreciation of the history of image making. This gave me the opportunity to understand the importance of archives, and how much care goes into keeping them safe. I wasn’t aware of this before, and it has made me want to create a more historic film, and edit my images and videos to replicate archives.
Archived Images:
Postcard of a painting of Elizabeth Castle by Dominique Serres
Société Jersiaise is an archive of photos that contains the History, culture, environment and language of Jersey. There is about 35,000 historical images archived here, some of their photos and information goes back further than 1873, which was the year it was founded. There is an extensive library there where the archive publishes books about the photos for people to get, handy for any historians on the island who want to learn more about the history of Jersey.
Here are some photos of our recent visit:
History:
In 1992 the Photographic Archive (SJPA) was established to implement appropriate collections management policies for the photographic collections held by the Société Jersiaise Library. From its foundation, the Société actively encouraged the use of photography in achieving its aims, resulting in the natural accrual of photographic materials.
The collection acted as both a repository of research resources relating to Jersey, and as a record of the work carried out by the Société’s Sections and Departments. The SJPA is responsible for over 140,000 records and is Jersey’s primary repository for photographic materials; as described in the shared collections management policy between Jersey Heritage and the Société Jersiaise, which came into effect in 2019.
This is my final piece for my zine. I tried to combine my favourite black and white images combined with my images in colour. For each page I decided to keep the colour combinations so when you turn the page its like you get a different story due to the different characters and personalities.
‘No Place Like Home takes as its starting point a subject of increasing concern and tension in the 21st century, affecting all aspects of society and identity. Twenty-three acclaimed artists cast multiple threads of inquiry to consider the idea of Home for this exhibition.
When we think of home do we think of planet earth or something on a smaller scale; the shelter we find to sleep or the relationships that hold us together? Across the UK, homes are less affordable now than they have been at any time in housing history. The context for this show is the Channel Island of Jersey where rents and mortgages can reach an eye-watering 90% of income. We may all yearn for a home but this basic need is charged with political, social and economic realities; borders shift, relationships fracture, rules change, and forced migrations impact on the incredibly fragile thing that we call Home. Home can be a sanctuary or a place of danger, it might be stable or temporary, intimate or shared, rooted for generations or a refuge in times of need. Home might be a person, a community to which we belong or contested land that is no longer available to us, homes are full of histories, meanings and tensions; subject to external forces and internal dramas
No Place Like Home delves into personal stories, global issues, childhood memories, and speculative worlds as well as the bleak realities of the current housing market. Addressing raw and painful topics such as war, migration, violence, love and loss, these artists do not shy away from difficult issues, but rather tackle them with inventiveness, honesty and hope.
The exhibition features newly commissioned artworks by Rachel Ara (Jersey), Sasha Bowles (UK), Ana vorovié (Bosnia/UK), Justin Hibbs (UK), Daria Koltsova (Ukraine/UK), Will Romeril (Jersey), Lindsay Rutter (Jersey), and Lisa Traxler (Isle of Wight/UK) alongside existing artworks work by artists including: Jananne Al-Ani (Iraq/UK), Jackie Berridge (UK), George Bolster (Ire/USA), Peter Jones (UK), Peter Liversidge (UK), Harriet Mena Hill (UK), Kate Murdoch (UK), Ravelle Pillay (South Africa), Saba Qizilbash (Pakistan/UAE), Martha Rostler (USA), Judith Tucker (UK), Joanna Whittle (UK), Eddie Wong (Malaysia/NZ) and Andrea V Wright (UK).
No Place Like Home also extends beyond the gallery to include Luke Jerram’s Floating Earth, an ode to the precious planet we live on and the fragility of water sited at Queen’s Valley Reservoir.
Rachel Ara’s Dissent Module, an otherworldly happening that leaves its debris by the roadside and in our minds, and Lisa Traxler’s sculpture Ghost Echo, sited at the entrance to Jersey War Tunnels that draws upon occupation history, bunker structures and early warning radar systems.
Within the gallery Justin Hibbs’ For the Attention of the Homeowner takes the form of a living room in which visitors are invited to assume a temporary residence in a space curated by the artist and, as homeowners, visitors can open mail, play records, read books and curate their own ‘shelfies’.
No Place Like Home is curated by Rosalind Davis and Laura Hudson and presented by Arthouse Jersey.’
– Art House Jersey
Harriet Mena Hill, UK Aylesbury
Estate Fragments
Acrylic on salvaged demolition concrete, 2020
Since 2018 Hills’ work has been focused on the Aylesbury Estate in South East London investigating how community identity is affected and reframed by the process of redevelopment and gentrification.
The Aylesbury Fragments are an extraordinary act of preservation, rendering scenes of her local architecture directly onto pieces of salvaged material from the Aylesbury Estate, which is being demolished as part of a regeneration program.
The Aylesbury Estate was designed by the architect Hans Peter Trenton and was considered exemplary social housing designed to meet the needs of the people who lived there. The building’s construction began in 1963 and housed approximately 10,000 people. It is now in the final phase of being demolished in order to make way for redevelopment and Hill has spent several years documenting this place as it disappears piece by piece, and at each stage of degradation; as tenants are moved out and those in desperate need are temporarily housed. The concrete is imbued with the contentious history of the site, what remains are fragments of people’s lives.
Martha Rosler, USA – Semiotics of the Kitchen
Video, Performance, RT 6. 15 minutes, 1975
In this performance based work, a static camera is focused on a woman in a kitchen. Rosier adopts the form of a parodic cooking demonstration in which, as Rosier states, “An anti Julia Child replaces the domesticated meaning of tools with a lexicon of rage and frustration.” Made in 1975 this piece is still relevant today, more so perhaps after the experience of lockdown and the burden of domestic work falling mainly to women. We have made major improvements to equality in, law, education, and the workplace but not so much in the Horne.
Ravelle Pillay, SA – Empty Rooms
Two colour lithograph on paper, 30 x 43.5cm, 2023
South African painter Ravelle Pillay uses lithography to document ancestral homes on both sides of her family that are imbued with histories of colonialism and the complex individual stories that shape them.
Empty rooms is a study of two buildings, superimposed on alien landscapes. The sites are related to Pillay’s own history, the first being of her family home built by her maternal great-grandfather in Durban, South Africa informally referred to as ‘the castle’, which was repossessed by the Apartheid government, and which now stands derelict. The second site is the ancestral home of her great-great-grandfather, Lilford Hall in Northamptonshire, England.
Each site, irrespective of their geographical distance, features heavily in the mythologised family histories Pillay grew up listening to.
Rachel Ara, Jersey – Seeking Comfort in an Uncomfortable Housing Market
Digital print on paper, 107×62cm, 2022
In 2021 the artist returned home to Jersey after 3 decades in London, primarily to keep an eye on her parents. Whilst looking for a home and studio, Ara was shocked by the unaffordable rents and chronic housing crisis forcing Jersey workers into cramped and difficult living conditions. This “performance” was her response. With no access to a studio and her tools in storage, Ara made this work with materials to hand; a large cardboard box, some household paint, gaffer tape and a smartphone to record her struggles fitting into a makeshift house unsuitably small for her body.
The format references Bruno Munari’s 1944 classic poster, “Seeking Comfort in an uncomfortable chair” which was a humorous provocation to the design establishment. 80 years later Aras’ work is a provocation to the state of the housing market.
Munari’s title is in both Italian and English, as Aras’ is in English and Portuguese, the second most widely spoken language in Jersey by a community who are disproportionately affected by substandard accommodation.
Governors of Jersey moved their official residence from Mont Orgueil to Elizabeth Castle, which was first used in a military context during the English Civil War in the 17th century. and was built to defend jersey against French invasions and has witnessed many significant events over the centuries. some of the wars that it was used in consist of The English Civil war, the Napoleonic Wars and world war 2.
it took around 70 years to complete the construction of the castle. It was also built in stages, with different sections being added over time. The construction began in the 16th century and continued in stages until the 17th century.
Built on a rocky islet in St. Aubin’s Bay, Elizabeth Castle has defended Jersey for more than 400 years. You can take the amphibious castle ferry or walk out along the causeway at low tide. Elizabeth Castle is the perfect place to spend a day exploring Jersey’s history with the Jersey Militia or castle gunner on parade.
Below is an old map of the castle
The main weapons that they used for defence consist of cannons, muskets and other firearms that where commonly used during that period.
below is some more information that i found on this website
The islet
Elizabeth Castle, as its name suggests, dates from the days of the great Tudor Queen. But its site had long previously been associated with events of local importance, the earliest of which might well be termed legendary rather than historical.
Here, about the year 540 AD, came Helier, the Christian anchorite after whom our town is named. He chose as his habitation a lonely spume-sprayed rock south east of the islet, where his reputed bed, a rough niche in the rock, may still be seen. In the same place, some 15 years later, he was discovered by a band of marauding sea-rovers and put to the sword, thus earning a place in the Calendar as Jersey’s first Christian martyr and patron saint.
The Hermitage, or oratory, which encloses his cell was erected at a much later date, probably in the 12th century.
St Marculf
St Helier was a pupil of St Marculf, to whom is chiefly attributed the conversion of the islanders to Christianity. As the population of Jersey then numbered, we are told, only 30 families, the task was not quite so formidable as it sounds. But the benefits conferred by these pioneers of Christianity were material as well as spiritual. The monasteries which they founded invariably attracted settlers to the district, agriculture and the rudiments of education were taught, and an impetus given to civilisation generally. Shortly after the death of St Helier, St Marculf established a monastic settlement upon the islet, and the agglomeration of peasants’ huts which, as a consequence, sprang up in the near vicinity, formed the foundations of the future town of St Helier. After the death of Marcuif in 558, his work was carried on by St Magloire or Mannelier. In 577 Pretextat, Archbishop of Rouen, as the result of a quarrel with the Frankish King, fled to Jersey and took refuge in the Monastery of the islet. He was the first of the host of political exiles who, throughout history, have found shelter and security on our shores. Jersey’s inclusion in the Empire of Charlemagne is disclosed by the records of the Abbey of Fontenelle, which state that the Emperor sent Abbot Gerwold on a diplomatic mission to Augia, as it was then termed, in 790.Towards the end of the ninth century, Norse raiders again descended on the Islet and St Marculf’s Monastery was laid in ruins.
Chris Marker was a French writer, photographer, documentary film director, multimedia and film essayist with his best known piece being La Jatee created in 1962. He has had some good credibility because of his abilities in his creative, and analysis aspects.
Mark was almost an ominous man, frequently refusing to do interviews or talking too much about his work. People have even debated on where he was even born, but it is known that he had joined the French resistance during WWII, and later in his life joined the United States Air Force. This was speculated as a lie but was later proven by Chris Marker’s journalism after the war, working for a number of companies in journalism, writing about political commentaries, poems, and film reviews. This led him to travel the world doing photography and journalism, eventually publishing his first novel. “His elusiveness was a tool for creation. It furnished him with freedom”. Clearly Mark was not a person for fame, as he didn’t give many interviews, which allowed him to peruse Directing and film making with a clear head, as it says he went with freedom.
La jatee
Marker became international after creating this short film which was made as a photomontage using up to 800 images that Chris had taken throughout the 26 counties he had been to over the years. The film is about a post-nuclear experiment in time travel, where a survivor is obsessed over distant and disconnected memories about a pier with the image being a mysterious woman and a mans death. The scientists in the “time travel” choose this survivor for their studies. The man travel back in time to contact the mysterious woman, but ends up discovering that the mans death at the pier was his own. This is supposed to reflect the fragility of memory and how possible it is to become destroyed and distorted.
Chris Marker (29 July 1921 – 29 July 2012) was a French writer, photographer, documentary film director, multimedia artist and film essayist who has been challenging moviegoers, philosophers, and himself for years with his complex queries about time, memory, and the rapid advancement of life on this planet. His best known film, La Jetée is one of the most influential, radical science-fiction films ever made, a tale of time travel.
Full film
A man is a prisoner in the aftermath a nuclear war, where survivors live underground. Scientists research time travel, hoping to send test subjects to different time periods “to call past and future to the rescue of the present.” They have difficulty finding subjects who can mentally deal with time travel, many of them go crazy or die. The scientists eventually settle upon the man, he has a key to the past because he has an obsessive memory from his pre-war childhood of a woman he had seen on the observation platform at Orly Airport shortly before witnessing a man die.
After several attempts, he reaches the pre-war period. He meets the woman from his memory. After his successful passages to the past, the experimenters attempt to send him into the far future. In a brief meeting with the technologically advanced people of the future, he is given a power unit sufficient to regenerate his own destroyed society.
Upon his return, with his mission accomplished, he discerns that he is to be executed by his jailers. He is contacted by the people of the future, who offer to help him escape to their time permanently; but he asks instead to be returned to the pre-war time of his childhood, hoping to find the woman again. He is returned to the past, placed on the observation deck at the airport. He is concerned with locating the woman, and quickly spots her. However, as he rushes to her, he notices an agent of his experimenters has followed him and realizes the agent is there to kill him. In his final moments, he comes to understand that the death he witnessed as a child, which has haunted him ever since, was his own death.
Société Jersiaise is an archive of photos that contains the History, culture, environment and language of Jersey. There is about 35,000 historical images archived here, some of their photos and information goes back further than 1873, which was the year it was founded. There is an extensive library there where the archive publishes books about the photos for people to get, handy for any historians on the island who want to learn more about the history of Jersey. They are currently celebrating their 150 year anniversary too. Their website and info about them and where they can be found, can be found here.
