Tag: Artifact

A2—Photographing the unseen

My work covers a number of the “unseens” that I identified as I began to think about this assignment: the past, the dead, missing people and secrets. Every family has its share of those and mine is no different. I know very little about my father’s branch of the family so, over the last few years, I have begun to unearth what I can through official records and archives in the UK. If it were left only to the physical evidence left to me—that is, the few objects in my possession—I would know very little about the people who came before me.

I present images of those objects here in the way that a museum or archive might, described simply and following archival technique (Online Museum Training – Photographing Collection Items. [s.d.]). I have done this because that is how I have come to read the pieces: for me, they are akin to museum artefacts in that they are from the past, are on display and are divorced from their original context. Individually, they might be read as objets trouvés, “objects or products with non-art functions that are placed into an art context and made part of an artwork” (History of the Found Object in Art [s.d.]).

Taken together, however, the objects form a collection that I try to fit with some difficulty and much imagination into a narrative about the people who owned them. In my mind, they hint at aspects of the daily lives of my paternal grandfather, grandmother and great-grandmother over a period of some 60 years, all before I was born. Without more detail and context, however, I realise that any interpretation I make contains a lot of projection and speculation.

And that is interesting to me. If I as a direct descendant am not able to tease out much of the context and narrative of these pieces, viewers with no personal connection are free to construct an even broader range of interpretations. We might all be able to view the pieces as signs, but it is unlikely we would all agree on what they signify (Hall, 2007, p.10). Would others’ narratives about the lives of my unseen family be any more or less valid than mine?

How would I know? Would it matter?

Item 1-1. Embossed silver cigarette case. Made by Frederick Field, Birmingham. No date.
Item 1-2. Detail of cigarette case showing embossed initials.
Item 2-1. Board slipcase containing pocket Book of Common Prayer and Hymns Ancient and Modern.
Item 2-2. Frontispiece of Book of Common Prayer with handwritten inscription, 9 January 1891.
Item 3-1. Cardboard booklet with commemorative sticker on cover.
Item 3-2. Booklet, showing handwritten inscription and Sunday School stickers, 1915–1916.
Item 4-1. Kodak Six-20 folding Brownie camera. Manufactured circa 1951–1955, London, UK.
Item 4-2. Side view of camera, unfolded.
Item 5-1. Wooden presentation box containing 6-piece, stainless steel cutlery set. No date.
Item 5-2. Presentation box, opened.

References

ARTifacts as ART and Inspiration (s.d.) At: http://www.SandraMcLeanArts.com/artifacts-as-art-and-inspiration.html (Accessed on 23 September 2019)

Hall, S. (2007) This Means This, This Means That: a user’s guide to semiotics. London: King.

History of the Found Object in Art (s.d.) At: http://www.artspace.com/magazine/art_101/the-history-of-the-found-object-in-art (Accessed on 23 September 2019)

Mary Mary Quite Contrary (s.d.) At: http://www.marymaryquitecontrary.org.uk/ (Accessed on 23 September 2019)

Museum in a Box – Crawford College of Art & Design (s.d.) At: https://crawford.cit.ie/museum-in-a-box/ (Accessed on 23 September 2019)

Online Museum Training – Photographing Collection Items. (s.d.) At: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUgG7HEpvyo (Accessed on 21 September 2019)

A2—Approach and contact sheets

After deciding to change direction and pursue the idea of “photographing the unseen” of history of one line of my family, I also decided to take the few items that have come into my possession as artifacts. To do this, I consulted a range of materials that outline some of the technical considerations necessary to photograph items accurately as part of a scientific or historical record. The video produced by the Australian Museums and Galleries Association Victoria ( Online Museum Training – Photographing Collection Items. [s.d.]) was particularly useful and contained a lot of practical advice.

The main technical considerations I took away were the following:

  • Use a neutral background. I opted for a white background rather than black because some of the objects were already quite dark and I did not want to obscure any details in shade.
  • Ensure even lighting around the object. Rather than using artificial light, I used a light tent with natural daylight.
  • Show the object from more than one angle and highlight any important details. I did this for each object and made additional exposures for inscriptions inside books and for objects kept within cases.
  • Include a scale to provide a way to understand the size of the object. I used a drafting scale that is marked in 1 cm increments.
  • Provide a brief descriptive text or label for the photographed object.

The contact sheet of the unprocessed images I took for Assignment 2 is available as a downloadable PDF at the link below:

can-a2-contact-sheetDownload

References

hsscarchaeology (2015) Photographing Artifacts. At: https://hsscarchaeology.wordpress.com/2015/06/09/photographing-artifacts/ (Accessed on 21 September 2019)

Karin (2011) Museums Nova Scotia: Photographing Artifacts – the good, the bad, and the ugly. At: http://passagemuseums.blogspot.com/2011/02/photographing-artifacts-good-bad-and.html (Accessed on 21 September 2019)

Online Museum Training – Photographing Collection Items. (s.d.) At: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUgG7HEpvyo (Accessed on 21 September 2019)

Pezzati, A. (2002) Adventures in Photography: Expeditions of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Philadelphia, UNITED STATES: University Museum Publications. At: http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ucreative-ebooks/detail.action?docID=3441604 (Accessed on 21 September 2019)