Calling back the past through photographs
2008-05-29
HOW do you remember, what do you remember? And how do you see your town? These are the questions an unusual photographic project at the Breytenbach Centre in Wellington is posing. This multi-disciplinary project includes an exhibition of old photographs of Wellington, opportunities for older people to recall and write down their recollections of the town. A third component is underway to involve the younger generation. Twelve Grade 7s from Hugo Rust Primary School and St Albans were recently asked to take photographs of their town, and these photographs are now being processed and clipped to produce a collage on large prints of the older photographs. In some cases the collages will represent a time difference of 100 years. Hendre Retief and Alisa Farr are heading the project. Hendre is a photographer and says that he returned to Wellington in 1990 when his grandmother became very ill, and spent many days talking to her and asking her about the old days. “It was then that I became interested in the history of the town, its people and their stories. “I did some work at the Wellington Museum helping to categorise their old photographs, and I think that is how the idea of doing this project evolved. “I am intrigued by the whole documentation process, and impressed by the type of photographs the learners have been taking. They have an interesting and fresh way of looking at things around them.” The exhibition is ongoing and at the moment they are documenting the stories and photographs of Wellington’s Pentz-, Main- and Church Streets.
More
News
|
