Investigating "Things Past"

Still & Moving Image Installation

 

Seven 110mm Negatives

​

Following the discovery of glowed pile of negatives (110mm), I felt anxious to separate them with bare fingers, one by one. Some heavily damaged some with minimal. I started to scan them frame by frame.

​

The moment I inserted the tiny negative into the scanner and could focus into a clear image, felt magical. Unlike familiar childhood photos that we all have, know, or seen endlessly, where the story around them is familiar therefore fixed, these images were "brand new -“memory fresh” without any context except my personal recollection.

​

For a few moments I could travel through time to revisit the past, hear the voices, sense the smells and experience unfamiliar nostalgic feelings.

​

In these semi-damaged 110mm films, I discovered visual evidence of seven events that happened during adolescence and shaped my life to this day.

​

Negative #1

​

My first camera, first images, first film/negative.

(Mini Pocket Agfa Sport - Red)

Old Jerusalem, 1982/83

​

The most exciting negative was the one that proves to be the very first clicks I had taken. It was in the narrow streets of the old city of Jerusalem.

​

The events of that specific day started afloat. It was just another weekend, the six of us traveling in the family car (Audi 80) to the old city of Jerusalem. We loved getting lost in the narrow alleyways of the old city having to make endless directional decisions based on sounds, smells and intuition, only to get lost and to guess our way back, trusting that at the end, when we all get completely tired, our father will get us out of the old city maze back to the car park.

​

Upon seeing the images, I could clearly recall how I led the entire family following unfamiliar music song - it was the new sound, rhythm, vibes of the song Downunder of Man at Work that grabbed my attention.

​

Next to to the record shop there was a small photography shop with a brand new Agfa pocket/sport camera on display (using 110mm cassettes) with a red waterproof plastic case.

​

I could clearly hear my father’s proposal, moving between the two shops undecided, as I had to choose between my very first vinyl record or the camera.

The rest is history.

​

It could have been just another personal family moment but upon reflection, I can how this intuitive decision was significant in my life, a pivotal moment that got me passionate about the magic of analogue photography and determined my future.

​

I went through the photos one by one. I do not remember ever seeing them. I examine everyone’s faces, the clothes we wore that day and the way I staged my family. I am curious on who I trusted to take my own portrait.

​

It feels surreal to me that 40 years later, I find myself sitting at my flat in Bloomsbury, overlooking the iconic British Library, (house to the largest historical archives in the world), scanning vintage 110mm negatives, indexing personal past events, analysing vintage photos, events that most likely directed me all the way to London.

​