White Like an Album: Visual Memory and Vernacular Photography
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31261/SSP.2022.19.06Keywords:
photo album, vernacular photography, visual memoryAbstract
In his essay, Maciej Topolski reflects on amateur photo albums. He starts from the etymology of the word “album” as designating “something that is white” (a white board in ancient Rome, a book with blank white pages in the present). Next, he describes the limitations of memory in the context of photography as a visual medium, the albums he collects, their relationship with orality, and their openness to new interpretations, i.e., to interpretations and narratives different to those belonging to the former album owners. Topolski concludes his essay with reflections on forgetfulness in the context of the disappearance of the visual form of memory – as represented by the photo album – and on its possible future developments.
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