A good friend sent me a link to a Telegraph gallery featuring images from the early 20th century. Almost 2 years ago, BBC4 aired its five-part series Edwardians in Colour. It gave the full treatment to an era distant for most but still within the memory and grasp of older generations.
Stéphane Passet. Mongolian prisoner in a box, July 1913. Image courtesy of BBC. © Musée Albert Kahn
When I see mainstream historicisation as this, I can’t help suspect (just a little) that it is done in order to define the times, facts and lessons of the era. Like all endeavours, it is a play of power (however unintentional). At face, Edwardians in Colour is a noble pedagogical effort and one trusts the BBC to handle the history responsibly. I am no post modernist – I don’t balk at all historical narratives – but I do shrink a little when the writing of history is clearly seen in documentary projects. I wonder if the construction of history in one place means the burying of history somepleace else. Is it the subtlest or the most dogmatic narratives that bed themselves into history? What happens when those with eye-witness testimony pass? Who determines the ‘facts’ of the past?
The Lumiere Brothers marketed the autochrome only a year before French banker and philanthropist, Albert Kahn began his own collection of history colour photography in 1908. Kahn called it the “Archive of the Planet.” The fact that these photographs are brought to us in colour brings us no closer to the times, but I would say they do bring us closer to an appreciation of time. It is a sad appreciation of time, just as the dwindling number of WW1 veterans at war memorials each Armistice Day are a poignant reminder of our dislocation from previous ages. History: How do you take yours? With distant awe or with confident conclusion?
Needless to say, the image above is foreign to us. Without struggle, I would add cultural remoteness to historical remoteness and utterly compound its ‘otherness’.
You can view the original image here, and a youtube video with incongruous funky music here.
Prison Photography 
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January 21, 2009 at 12:28 am
Andre Brazil
“When I see mainstream historicisation as this, I can’t help suspect (just a little) that it is done in order to define the times, facts and lessons of the era. Like all endeavours, it is a play of power, however benignly unintentional (…)Needless to say, the image above is so foreign to us. Without struggle, I would add cultural remoteness to historical remoteness and utterly compound its ‘otherness’.”
I couldn’t say anything better and I totally agree with you, especially concerning the reality of ‘plays of power’. However, being cold-blooded and intellectualism are two different things, and they DON’T walk hand in hand. =)
Very special blog anyways. I’ll keep an eye on it.
http://brazilandre.blogspot.com/
January 21, 2009 at 1:49 am
petebrook
Thanks for the kind words Andre. Good luck with your new blog. It looks like you’ve been busy breaking down notions of “cultural otherness”. My own acquiescence to a point of other and isolation is part truth, part melodrama, and part inevitability. I certainly don’t actively distance myself from folk, but on many occasions find myself there to make the point about people’s general dislocation. I am not above, beyond or outside of any judgments – my own or others. Its very difficult to put down words when you see yourself in multiple positions relating to the same person/situation….
May 22, 2012 at 9:28 am
Por favor. Que alguien explique esta fotografía « Kurioso
[…] poco más tarde alguien pone el enlace correcto. La foto no es de Albert Kahn, sino de uno de sus discípulos, Stéphane Passet de la serie […]
June 9, 2012 at 6:17 am
scribblegurl
If you find yourself in Paris, you might want to visit the Musee Jardin d’Albert Kahn and check out the photography exhibit. I’d be interested in your thoughts on it.