ABOVE AND UNDER THE SURFACE

Thank you to everyone that visited and participated in ABOVE AND UNDER THE SURFACE. Our first online exhibition featuring archival and family photographs closed March 15th, 2022. For this exhibition photo collectors, photo lovers, and the general public were invited to submit digital images of their photographic objects that memorialize or help trace the history of the image, a moment worth remembering, or a historical occasion for our Online Exhibition & Catalog juried by the Rijksmuseum Photo Conservator, Rosina Herrera and Art Historian, Claudia Pretelin. 

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION:

The imprints of memory on a photographic surface leave marks, stains, little spots, vestiges, and information that produce meaning for the owner of the photographic object. They also leave a path for conservators to find out more about these objects, their provenance, the time that these images were produced, and the materials used to produce them. As a photo conservator, Rosina Herrera considers that “old photographs tell you everything about themselves and, sometimes, your own history”. From October 15, 2021 to March 15, 2022, Instruments of Memory (IoM) presented ABOVE AND UNDER THE SURFACE, our first online exhibition featuring archival and family photographs. For this exhibition we created an international open call to participate with digital images of photographic objects that memorialize or help trace the history of the image, a moment worth remembering, or a historical occasion. The provenance of these images, provided by photo collectors, photo lovers, conservators, and storytellers, are told by their owners, some of them truthful to the image, some others imagining narratives that were born out of love or nostalgic memories. We shared these stories with you and let you decide, identify, and project in these images your own memories. The images were selected by Rijksmuseum Photo Conservator, Rosina Herrera and Art Historian, Claudia Pretelin.  We grouped the images into categories that we have playfully titled: The Conservator’s Nightmare, Hidden Stories and Meanings, Notes of Love and Other Messages, and Let Kodak Keep the Story. Thank you to all the participants for trusting us with your images!

Online Exhibition Dates: October 15, 2021 -March 15, 2022

ABOUT THE CURATORS:

Rosina Herrera studied Paper Conservation and Art History before she was trained as a Photograph Conservator in Rochester, NY, at the Eastman Museum’s Advanced Residency Program in Photo Conservation. She worked at MoMA (NY) as an Andrew W. Mellon fellow and has collaborated with the Hispanic Society of New York. In 2014 she joined the Rijkmuseum in Amsterdam (The Netherlands).

Claudia Pretelin is a Mexican art historian, independent curator, and arts administrator based in Los Angeles, California. She holds a B.A. in communications and received her M.A. and Ph.D. in art history from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). Her academic work has specialized in the fields of photo history and contemporary art. Through an interdisciplinary approach, her curatorial practice focuses on understanding the processes by which individuals and groups remember and interpret memory in its different manifestations.

Participants: