“Historians in Two Hundred Years' Time Are Going to Die for That!”
Historiography and Temporality in the “One Day for Life” Photography Archive
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 19438341 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Annebella Pollen (0000-0002-4896-8702, corresponding author), Pollen Pollen |
| Year | 2013 |
| Volume | 25 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 66 |
| Publication date | 2013-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | History and Memory (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0935-560X • E-ISSN: 1527-1994 |
| Publisher | Indiana University Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.2979/histmemo.25.2.66 |
| OpenAlex | W2089882893 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 16 |
The photograph's relationship to history and memory has been extensively theorized, but little empirical research has been undertaken to understand how these ideas intersect with the experience of photographs as historical forms in everyday life. This article explores the complexity of photographs' temporality and evaluates their memorial status through the prism of a distinctive body of material: the 55,000 amateur photographs taken on a single day in 1987 donated to a fundraising event entitled One Day for Life. Notions of history inflect the project from its original conception to its preservation. On the basis of the extensive archival materials, the published edits of the photographs and questionnaires and interviews with One Day for Life participants, organizers, judges, publishers and archivists, the article argues that the predominant tendency to treat photographs merely as historical sources or as memory aids overlooks their productive potential as historical performances in their own right
Aesthetics · Amateur · Archaeology · Art · Art history · Comparative historical research · Epistemology · Everyday life · Historiography · Photography · Prism · Social science · Sociology · Temporality · Visual arts · Computer Science · History · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration · Museums and Cultural Heritage · Philosophy · Photography and Visual Culture
The presence of the past
Inside culture
Snapshot Versions of Life
The Meaning of Things
Photographs Objects Histories
Museum Materialities
Found in the UK's National Collection of the Art of Photography
Fictional Photography
Contemporary Futures
Words of Light
On the Relationship between Personal Photographs and Individual Memory
Snapshots
The making of memory
Family snaps
Good Intentions
| Citations per year | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |