The archive and the lot of old 1930´s press photographs, which I want to distribute to people who can relate to what the pictures show.
By Sixten Therkildsen
I have in my possession an archive of old press photographs from the 1930's, which I have bought from a collector. The old photos had been in the collector's dusty safe keeping a long time, but I thought the pictures should be done justice by finding a utility value for them with people who have a knowledge and interest connected to what the photographs show. So I bought the collection of photographs and I am about to make a short video film about how one could imagine this archive of old press photos could be of meaning and be used in our present day. Therefore, I am looking for people who can relate to what we see in the pictures. People who will be interested in receiving these old press photographs.
The pictures are very well-preserved, even though they are all from the 1930's. On the reverse side of each press photo there is a very short text, which explains a little about the event we see on the picture and that also gives the names of some of the people and some of the places we see. I do not know whether the photographs have ever been published in any newspapers. In school we never learned anything about the events which the photographs show, my grandparents have never told me of these episodes from their youth, and nobody else has told me about what we see in the pictures. I have, therefore, attempted to imagine how these short captions, which are on the reverse of the photographs, could be elaborated into slightly longer stories; amongst other things, to set some thoughts in the world about whom it could be that would be interested in receiving these old photographs.
In my stories I make use of short extracts from the book Etiquette, written by Emily Post around the same time the old photographs originate from. The extracts tell of the way in which one should associate with one another in society's finer circles at that time. The short excerts are here re-written in past tense in order to evoke the appropriate historical atmosphere. I feel the combination of the small captions on the photographs and excerpts from Emily Post's wise words on good manners and etiquette, give an idea of which context the old press photos come from. My stories give a picture of the polarised society that the persons appearing in the photographs were part of, and they also give a sense of the greater overriding conflict, which the individual events in the pictures mirror.
I believe that it will make sense if I can give the old photographs to people who are experiencing similar conflict in our present time and who can bring the photographs in to their correct context again, by using them in such a conflict. The conflict in which I see the pictures appear manifests itself when one reads the associated stories that I have set together. So I would like to hear from you, if you know something about one or more of the events we see in the pictures or if you believe you could contribute to my video project by telling me, via e-mail, of a fitting way to use one of the pictures. If, whilst reading one of my stories, you get an idea for a good and useful context that one of the photographs could appear in, I would be happy to send it to you. My e-mail address is: recollectionrally@gmail.com and the stories I have put together can be read here on this website.
www.recollection-rally.org is a project by Sixten Therkildsen, email: recollectionrally@gmail.com
