Constantly Unfolding and Consistently Present: The Active Life of Historical Photograph Albums

This paper moves beyond consideration of the photograph as a singular image to explore its active life as an event that unfolds across multiple spaces and temporalities. As an imaginative, creative space, the photograph album is multisensorial. It is a site of tactility and orality that allows the assembler or album owner to articulate changing narratives. This function enfolds another sense, that of hearing or listening to the tales told and imaginatively engaging with them. The oral/auditory/visual/tactile aspect of the album, which operates as a reflective, interior, evocative space, also opens to a public and shared space through performance and other creative means of expression. The photograph, through the actions of its taking, exchange, collection, and display in albums, enfolds viewers in real and imaginative communities, as a site of sharing and bonding.