Curatorial Project
Document
ABC No Rio, 156 Rivington Street, NY
Feb 17 to March 17, 2011
Mary Daniel, Vadana Jain, Sarah Kipp, Maanick Singh Chauhan
Historically the photograph has been used as a document that is thought to depict truth from a certain moment in time. Photographs are historical markers as they are artefacts that give the viewer hints to societal trends during a certain time period. These are found through clothing and fashions that people found within the document are wearing, the time period of vehicles in the image and even the type and size of the photograph (for instance, a digital print vs. analog photography). Photographs have the ability to spark a viewer’s memory of a time gone by, sometimes these are memories of actual events that happened in the past and sometimes they are imagined events. As a viewer interprets a photograph they neglect to consider their own cultural stereotypes while looking at the work. These stereotypes include racial identity, the place where the photo was taken and sexuality.