Commentary: Elizabeth Edwards - Raw Histories
“Photographs here are as much ‘to think with as they are empirical, evidential inscriptions.” When I read this sentence, I was reminded of how photographs can construct and reconstruct realities, engage in sociopolitical discourse, and serve as evidence to refute or confirm what history books tell. However, I was perplexed by the fact that they are also fluid in the sense that they may contain multiple layers that are open to interpretation and are influenced by one’s ontological dimensions, experiences, cultures, and backgrounds. It’s as the author denotes: “I shall argue instead that within the archive and the museum there is a dense multidimensional fluidity of the discursive practices of photographs as linking objects between past and present, between visible and invisible and active in cross-cultural negotiation.” This then begs the question: How much evidence is sufficient? What level of evidence do photographs hold, and how malleable can that be? Photographs certainly have their powers, but I think they also pose an ethical dilemma, and that the ethical responsibility is contingent on the curator. What history did they choose to reveal, and what history did they try to conceal?