Exhibition Feature: The poetry of re(imagining) the past

Artist Judith Martinez Estrada reveals the creative processes and personal obsession that inform her new exhibition Revenant.

The use of antique vernacular photography has become central to your practice. Can you explain what first drew you to these images and why they have become such a touchstone in your imagery?

I have always been interested in history, and consequently gravitated towards the past. I believe that perhaps it isn’t so much what first drew me to the images as much as that using them in my work represents a life-long curiosity linked to the images and artefacts which represent different moments in time.

Over the years, I have accumulated over 1,000 antique photographs. This collection is a compilation of vernacular and found images and it is one I take very seriously. The process of sourcing the images, as well as what sort of images find their way into the archive and how I categorise, has become part of the creative practice in itself.

My photographic collection is diverse; it contains varied subjects, photographic techniques and evolutions – from French glass plates and negatives, to American tintypes, cabinet cards and cartes de visite of the petit bourgeoisie, and early 20th century Box Brownie snapshots. The collection is predominately made up of formal studio portraits from the United States of America, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland, intrepid Edwardians by the seaside, and candid spontaneous images of 1920s flappers.

My work usually takes as its protagonists the unknown figures from this collection. I allow myself the liberty, due to their anonymous provenance, to create alternative stories for these women, children and men. I believe that it is this anonymity that drives the work. A sense of reverence is felt towards these unknown figures – who were they and why has the memory of them been discarded? This question drives the work, resulting in an allegory to the memory of those without a name.

For most, if not all of us, the events of 2020 have forced us to live and work differently and artists are no exception. Border closures and the resulting travel restrictions have meant you were no longer able to make the work you initially proposed for your exhibition at the Cultural Centre. Can you tell us a little about how the plans for you exhibition have changed in recent months?

The exhibition was initially going to be made up of the work generated at Baldessin Press in Victoria, which would have been informed by archival investigation from The State Library of Victoria (SLV). I was awarded the Rick Amor Residency Fellowship at SLV to generate this work, but COVID restrictions, border closures and the lockdown in Victoria led to the proposed work being put on hold. The concept won’t be abandoned, and it will reach its intended audience, but the imposed restrictions meant I had to rethink my exhibition at the Cultural Centre. The methodology remains the same, creating a body of work resulting in the reinterpretation and reimagining of archival investigation, with the difference being that instead of drawing inspiration from an institutional archive, I have focused on my own personal archive of antique vernacular photographs. Personally, these photographs are equally as valuable (to me) as those stamped with a bureaucratic/institutional seal of approval: for within each photograph, lays an amenability that appears willing and ready to be integrated into new work. These photographs and their subjects are the inspiration behind Revenant.

The aesthetic and medium of my work remains unaltered. The exhibition is made up of layered photo-media works – both digital and analogue – which offer alternative and reimagined narratives. I am fortunate that the work exhibited will be aligned with my recent post-graduate studies and corresponding practice. In a way, as horrible as the current situation is, I feel fortunate that I can make work using a collection I have and love, while at the same time knowing that there is a creative project waiting to take shape in 2021.

IMAGE: JUDITH MARTINEZ ESTRADA Amanuensis II (detail) 2020, manipulated antique photograph, beeswax, gold powder and thread, 10.7 x 7 cm, courtesy the artist