PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORY

When I was younger I used to dream lucidly. I lay down, looked at the ceiling and in my mind I would picture small frames above me. Within each frame was a different dream with a different story to tell. If I decided I didn’t like the dream I was in I would leave that frame and enter another. As I lie here now, underneath the roof of this house, I look up at the many tiny frames above me. I can move closer and enter that frame, become part of the narrative, transport myself into that specific memory. I may not have lived them but that does not seem to matter, I can still picture myself there, within this different world. The labelling on the slides gives a small amount of context to help you grasp the world that you’re entering. It may no longer be the ceiling of framed dreams like I grew up with but rather a house of memories. I wish there was an easy way to describe my grandfather, Professor James Fletcher. I know two versions of him: the man in my memory and the one I met through his photographs. Clearing out my grandmother’s house shortly after her death led to the discovery of thousands of my grandfather’s old slides. He died when I was thirteen after being unwell for several years and I sadly didn’t know how much of a photographer he was before he passed away. He trained in dentistry, where he met my grandmother. I wish that I had known more about his creative passions while he was alive, but by going through his slides I was able to get an insight into the world that he was a part of before I was born. It is known within my family that he wasn’t always approachable, that he was nicknamed grumpy and could be cruel to others, but I never really remembered him that way. He was always so kind to me. I wonder if somehow, he knew, even at my young age, that I would grow up to want to be an artist and follow the dream that he wished he could have had. My grandfather photographed many images over his lifetime and I know from talking to my family that they were not particularly interested in the images he had to show. Even after his death it took years for my family to actually go through his collection, and as far as I am aware my grandmother never did before she died. Was he aware that many of his images might have gone unseen, and if so, why were they catalogued so meticulously when it was only for an audience of one? Did he ever look back on the images later in his life? These are obviously questions that I will never receive the answer to, however this house of memories allows these images to be seen in a new light. By reflecting on this archive and presenting them in an exhibition space, I wish to honour his photographic legacy, learning to love the part of him that may have been hidden to the world, understanding him in a way that others couldn’t whilst he was alive. The house shape stemmed from the idea of wanting to create a welcoming feeling for the visitor, something that would juxtapose the character he portrayed to my family while he was alive. Something that you could enter and become a part of. The gothic structure of the house mimicking the drawing of a child, creating parallels between my childhood memories and the home he created. The use of the physical slides was something that was important to me as they are things that have been hidden for years, untouched and unobserved. I wanted to make sure that they themselves were put on show and not just kept in their box as they have been for so long. I’ve been writing down my memories as well as collecting the stories of those that knew him. The archive is never the whole truth in itself, it is based on what has been left behind. Reading the palpanistic overlapping of stories, seeing how people have viewed him differently over the years, how I remember him compared to my mum or uncle allows for a new life to be given. The viewer, creating their own opinions from the work only adds to the discovery of his character and who he was. He had a troubled soul and I believe, spent much time alone. His archive has shown he was arguably a man stuck on the wrong path: an artist trapped in the role of a professor of dentisty. By understanding the choices that my grandfather made and through knowing the man he was, I am glad I chose to follow my dream and to fulfil my creative passions. I see parts of myself and my practice within his photographs and at the same time can see and appreciate our differences. Archivists sacrifice their time and labour to understand someone else’s story. You feel yourself become lost in their world, becoming the person that you are researching, finding similarities of your own character within them. Sometimes, you uncover parts of their personality that no one else ever saw. Almost as if, ‘as the lost myriads of the past had never really lived,’ and you now ‘give actual life rather than mere resurrection’ to the parts of themselves that they chose to hide (Steedman, 2001, p71). I shall never know whether Papa lived the life that he wanted to, however, I believe that everyone has parts of themselves that they chose to hide, and his photographs largely remained private while he was alive. By looking at my grandfather’s archive, I’m not trying to ‘resurrect’ the man that he was, but rather understand the man that he could have been and ‘give life’ to the hidden artist within him. Artists such as Vivian Maier documented her entire life, only later discovered after her death. In the way that her work helped to document the world at that time, my grandfather’s work can be used as a way of understanding who he was as well as the world that he lived in. His aesthetic parallels that of William Eggleston and Stephen Shore, in his case photographing empty rooms, landscape views and his dental practice, spaces that show a trace of a human presence but no actual life. C. Steedman discusses how certain places hold memories which provide an archive for dreams and memories, how the details of a house have dreams hidden within them. Stephen Shore’s work especially was ignored for years before finally his images were recognised as key works within American photography.