Susan Meiselas Mediations
FundaciÓ Antoni Tà pies
Jeu de Paume
Damiani
Digging Down to the Meaning of Place Pia Viewing
Opposite page: Self-Portrait, from the series 44 Irving Street, 1971 Following pages: Archive material from the 44 Irving Street project, 1971 From left to right, top to bottom Contact sheet, Tenant, 1971 Excerpts of interviews with neighbours to accompany portraits Susan Meiselas's notebook during her MA Visual Studies for "Photography as Sociological Description", Cambridge, MA 1971 Contact sheet, 44 Irving Street boarding house, 1971
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Pia Viewing | Digging Down to the Meaning of Place
… the photographer with a five-day visa, gazing down—not for the first time—into a mass grave and realizing that history has offered no clue for what she is seeing. Thus she begins, not with the images that already exist, that overwhelm us with familiarity and ennui, and can only be made strange by relentless categorization and repetition and the judicious suspension of normative sharpness, but with the sense that where bodies were buried in secret there must also be a buried archive, limited in scope but immense nonetheless, waiting for resurrection. An archive, but not an atlas: the point here is not to take the world upon one’s shoulders, but to crouch down to the earth, and dig.1 Allan Sekula
S
usan Meiselas became a well-known
to create links with people, to take her from
photographer through the publication of
one place to another. The manner in which
her work made in the war zones of Nicaragua
she engages with her subject is essential
and El Salvador and other Central American
to all her work as she “activates” a form
countries, where she worked from 1978
of exchange with them and in so doing
to the early 1990s. What attracted her to
develops long-term relationships with many
Nicaragua? Was it the resounding economic
people she photographs. This process is
and political interest of the United States
launched through the identification of a place
in this area of the world that fed a burning
or a situation and is followed by research on
desire to leave her home country and reveal
the context. Her photographs, other images
the other side of the story? Or maybe even
and archive material that she collects, are
the desire to unravel the complexity of war?
closely linked to places characterised by
As Allan Sekula points out in the quote
social interaction or by political and military
above that refers to the Kurdistan work
action over territorial conflict.
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(1991–97), which Meiselas developed after Nicaragua and El Salvador, she works directly
She began by investigating her own immediate
with a given situation and its various layers of
surroundings. 44 Irving Street (1971)3 is a
meaning. Present on site, she “digs down”
series of photographs of the occupants of a
in search of visible elements that signify past
boarding house where Meiselas lived when she
experiences in certain places where she
was a graduate student.4 Each image shows
photographs the people and the traces of
a tenant in a corner of his/her room. Some of
actions, she records the testimonies of those
the photographs are exhibited with a short text
who remain, gathers archival material, jots
(handwritten or typed) written by the person
down the facts...
portrayed. The short narrative is about how they perceived themselves in the photographs
Her incessant desire to travel and discover
of their dwellings. For example: “I looked at
arose when she started, in the early 1970s, to use the photographic image to investigate,
Entrance, from the series 44 Irving Street, 1971
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some of the other pictures, as well as my own,
shows the extent to which the process of
and was struck by something that I feel is quite
appropriation is important to the artist. Rather
indicative of this house and the people in it,
than a sociological survey of the inhabitants of
and thus indirectly of me as well. Obviously
this area in Cambridge Massachusetts, the work
everyone living here, for one reason or another,
brings together individual testimonies, bridging
has chosen to live alone. I am sure that I am like
the gap between people lodging in the same
the rest of the people in this place, with friends
building who did not necessarily interact in the
and interests on the outside, but I still decide
communal spaces like the kitchen and dining
to live alone. My picture shows me standing in
room. The driving force behind the work has
my small world, looking out at everything and
more to do with a desire to create contact, to
everyone. People can come in on occasion and
use the photographic image as a marker of
be part of my world, but only for a short while.”
what Walter Benjamin called Jetztzeit ("now-
While the images pinpoint identity, the texts
time") than with making a sociological study or
produce narrative. This work emphasises
showing intimate places of abode.
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literal description (both visual and scriptural). It is about location and dwelling. Meiselas
After a primary experience in exploring “the
interacted with her subjects to explore, through
use of photography as a pedagogical tool”,6
her images, their relationship to the place as
Meiselas “became an artist-in-residence
such. Their written response also becomes
with the South Carolina and Mississippi
part of the final artwork when exhibited, which
arts commissions in 1973”.7 The residency
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Pia Viewing | Digging Down to the Meaning of Place
Porch Portraits (1974) is a series of black and white portraits taken of the inhabitants of the Kingstree area in South Carolina. Some of the children in these single or group portraits went to the school Meiselas worked at, but it was by chance that she came across their homes while driving around the area. This photographic essay shows people of all ages in front of their houses or in their gardens. The small wooden houses, with open verandas (or porches), are typical southern American homes9; adults pose, children look towards her fascinated by the camera or can be seen playing in the yard, trees, long grass, a car, washing lines, domestic animals... The harshness and the austerity of these scenes are surely not entirely due to the poverty of this region. programme took place in primary schools
“Social integration takes place via inclusion
where she taught visual literacy through
in space, identity refers to an alterity that
photographic practice with the young
finds forms of exclusion and forms of
children (10–12 years old). Meiselas explains
inclusion in space, forms necessary to the
in an interview with Kristen Lubben just what
regulation of external contributions that
this project meant to her: “I recently heard
mark, alter and renew the composition
from someone who was a student in that
of a social group... A territory has a value
classroom... This young boy (now a man),
in a geography of the representations of
Richie, talked about how photography had
the world. This geography articulates the
strengthened his connexion to community...
definition of a here within reach of all of
I think I made a similar kind of connexion
us, as it articulates the side-lining of an
myself in that classroom: linking to the world
elsewhere to the exclusion of another.”10
through photography. Or finding a reason
The specificity of these images lies in the
to be in the world. A reason to be curious
encounter itself: the young photographer
about the world. That experience taught
was learning how to establish contact with
me a way to engage”. So it was both the
her subjects. She was testing the limits of
geographical shift and the connexion through
the photographic approach. Immersed in
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the people she had been working with, using photography, that brought Meiselas to develop her practice further.
Opposite page: Becky, from the series 44 Irving Street, 1971 Above: Tenant, from the series 44 Irving Street, 1971
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a territory for which she had no map, she
reciprocated by sending a print to each of
tested the porosity of the social boundaries
the persons photographed. What do these
in this open, barren and lonely territory.
images say about American society in the
Hardly any form of physical boundaries was
mid-1970s? How could she justify making
visible between public and private space as
photographs of these places?
she intuitively explored how far she could penetrate the space in order to connect with
Following this experience, Meiselas developed
the people living there.
a community-based project in Lando, one
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of several old company-owned mill towns in The Porch Portraits project helped her to
South Carolina, with Judy Inabinet, the wife
understand how to reach out to unknown
of the local Methodist preacher, a central
areas, to trust her sense of space and to
figure in this small traditional town where,
build relationships linking people to places
generation after generation, the inhabitants
through her photographic practice. She
remained anchored to the “traditional� setting
wanted to portray these homes and the
of the private enterprise. Meiselas worked
ways of life there, instinctively linking up her
with a group of high-school students and
institutional teaching experience with her personal photographic practice through this investigation. Considering the photographic practice as a form of exchange, she
Opposite page: Contact sheet, South Carolina, from the series Porch Portraits, 1974 Above: South Carolina, 1974, from the series Porch Portraits, 1974
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some adult community members to “create
Lando, marked the Bicentennial celebrations
a photo genealogy of Lando by collecting
of the town. It was held in public gathering
old photographs and oral histories from the
places such as the Post office and the
families who lived there all their lives. ” The
company store and showed an amazing
project, which was supported by The South
chronological “map” produced on site.14
Carolina Arts Commission and Polaroid
The new portraits updated the collection
Foundation, involved research into the history
of “vintage” archive material and therefore
of the town through early photographs
confirm the process’s legibility. The work
of the town in the 1880s, archive material
remained within the community after the
from family albums and “portraits of the
exhibition but this project enabled the artist
townspeople of the present... taken in familiar
to appropriate the work as a process, which,
settings, in homes that have histories of the
retrospectively, is indeed coherent to her
families passing through them, on porches
approach in many other projects.15
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that bear often too much resemblance to their past state, and activities that continue
Documentary photography, having a certain
to bring people together. ” The exhibition
ethical bond to the representation of reality,
A photographic genealogy – The History of
enables the visual study of the image to
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be part of a descriptive process where the work acts as a “mediator” between history (referring to collective memory), the subjects of the images and the outside viewer (the exhibition visitor for example). Meiselas uses the image as a reference point to which memory can refer, designating and representing an active space inside the frame.16 Evidently all photographs link time and place together, but the specificity of her documentary practice is to link place to the living experience of the subject at a particular time. As a visual study of place, the process implies questioning how people are connected to place as a notion of identification and orientation: drawing attention to the manner in which the spaces are used and questioning how life occurs or “takes place” in an identified location. Indeed, the link between the presence of the
Mott Street, in the subway or on the beach.
subject and the place is a strong aspect of
The nature of the photographs is induced
Meiselas’s work, and one that she developed
by the spatial organisation of the places
from her early works onwards.
where the adolescents interact. They seem completely at ease in the photographs,
Only three years later, Meiselas went to
showing the extent to which they belong to
cover the uprisings in Nicaragua, where
these public spaces. During the first years of
she worked on and off for a period of more
the project (1975–78) the subject of the work
than twenty-five years. However, before
is very definitely the presence of the group.
heading off to Nicaragua in 1978, she
Each separate moment updates the series.
began a series of photographs showing
The strong sense of presence that the girls
incidental encounters in the streets around
render in the photographs shows the desire
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her home. In particular, she noticed the presence of a group of young teenage girls who hung out together in the streets of Little Italy, New York: the Prince Street Girls (1975–90). The series of black and white prints portrays specific moments on the street corner between Prince Street and
Opposite page: Spread from The Old Mill Stream, community publication, Lando, South Carolina, 1975, pp. 2-3 Above: Community viewers at the exhibition A Photographic Genealogy – The History of Lando, Lando, South Carolina, 1974 Following pages: Contact sheet, scenes on Mott Street, Little Italy, New York, 1975, from the series Prince Street Girls, 1975–90
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Pia Viewing | Digging Down to the Meaning of Place
of the group to participate actively in the
the possibility of their death. There were, I
process of the work. However, there was a
don’t know, weeks or months in which I drove
change in the development of this work over
around Nicaragua trying to think what should
the twenty-five-year period that it covers.
I photograph? What will they do? What would
When Meiselas starts to work in Nicaragua,
they destroy? So what should I document to
the regular acquaintance with her subjects
make sure there was a record? And who would
is cut. The core of the subject matter evolves
they kill? Who would they kill first? Which of
from the study of how the girls interact in
my friends? Which of the people I last saw?”19
different places to portraits which, combined,
Exploring and framing place took on a
evoke the narrative of their lives. In the images
different meaning in these circumstances. It is
of the marriages or even the portraits of
interesting to note that Meiselas took this into
mother and child, the notion of place became
account by creating a specific work on the
almost obsolete in the Prince Street Girls series. This shift took place after she began to work in Nicaragua. The girls were growing up and had moved out of the area, some left the city with their families or got married, left to create families of their own – so the group broke up and no longer used public space as their playground.18 Moreover, the strong contrast between “home” and guerrilla warfare in the hills between Nicaragua and El Salvador most probably had an everlasting impact on Meiselas’s life and work. Referring to the guerrilla war zones in Nicaragua, she explains how the image, even before it is taken, becomes part of a potential archive in the photographer’s mind. The point that she stresses is the role she felt she had in recording the history of a territory at war: “I went into a period where I felt as if every time I was photographing something or someone, I was thinking about that moment when they would no longer be there. The present tense became impossible. I couldn’t shoot because I kept feeling as if holding up my camera was an acknowledgement of
Opposite page: Contact prints, 1976, from the series Prince Street Girls, 1975–90 Below: Note on the series Prince Street Girls, 23 May 1978
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subject. Entitled Reframing History (2004), she
a community arts-based enterprise called
returned to Nicaragua over twenty years later
Multistory, which she contacted and began
and installed printed murals of photographs
working with women who had decided
she took during the war (1978–79) where
to break away from abusive husbands
the initial photographs had been taken.
or enclosed situations to a refuge for a
Place is therefore the central issue in this
transitory period where they were able
project. The artist not only revives collective
to live in private accommodation with a
memory using her photographs as the main
communal kitchen, living-room, child’s
visual reference but she also makes a film,
playroom and backyard. These sheltered
Pictures from a Revolution (1991), showing
and controlled places help to protect
the process she sets in motion in order to
women and their young children from
find the people she had covered in combat
various forms of domestic violence.
one decade before. The whole procedure
Spanning over a period of two years,
points to the impossibility of the image to
Meiselas’s project included research,
represent duration. By reactivating collective
many interactive workshops based on
memory and recording the process, Meiselas
experimental practice collaborating with
shows the relevance of her process; that she
the women and a small group comprised
recognises that the time of the photographic
of a local artist, writer, assistants and the
image is hardly sufficient to reveal the plurality
Multistory team to produce storytelling, life-
of moments enacted in one particular place.
maps or text image collages and finally the making of a book.21
The identification of places as sources or anchoring points is a common
Colour photographs of sparse rooms
denominator throughout Meiselas’s
containing only objects: an empty room
practice. By encouraging the participation
with one single bed and a chair or a room
of the people she portrays in her work,
scattered with toys or a room adorned with
she reinvests in the image by introducing
a long line of shoes laid straight against
oral or written testimony. This process was
the wall. In some rooms, a pin board or a
used in a somewhat different manner in a
mirror on a wall, or even a chest of drawers
work on domestic violence. Rather than
and a wardrobe, filling the small spaces
linking place and identity together (like in
considerably and fragmenting the monotony
Nicaragua for example), this project had to
of these unidentifiable impersonal dwellings.
protect the identity of the subjects making
A room with light green walls, a single bed
the place the most central element of the
with a duvet and a pillow, a half empty Coke
series. In 2015, Meiselas was invited to
bottle on the floor and a mobile phone
work in the region of the “Black Country”,
charger plugged into the wall with the wire
the West Midlands region of Great Britain.
dangling on the floor, no phone (see p. 157).
After some investigation she learnt about
A courtyard, a washing line, a tiled area
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Pia Viewing | Digging Down to the Meaning of Place
enclosed by red brick walls with pink and
are and who they will be. This experience
red toys lying abandoned on the ground,
has reaffirmed for me the value and the
a garden with green short (artificial) grass,
importance of documentary photography, and
many autumn leaves, some plastic toys and
at the same time it has made me even more
a painted mural… Looking at these images
aware of how complex the act of reading
puts one in the position of an observer who
meaning from photographs can be.”22
questions, first and foremost, the function of this place. The photographs appear to be pointing at a dividing line between absence and presence, between quiet intimacy and the necessity to communicate, between appearing and disappearing, between belonging and deciding not to belong, between imagination and evidence, between hesitation and decision. From one work to another, Meiselas elaborates her work, giving most of the artworks additional layers of meaning and amplifying them as time goes on. Over the years, she developed a corpus of photographic essays and films composed of many separate narratives from all over the world. As described above, the notion of place plays the pivotal role in the meaning and the purpose of the works. They tell their story, relate to contemporary societies and refer to their historical heritages. Reading the images as traces of what is bound to disappear is also the function of the complex artworks that Meiselas produces. However, as an artist using all sorts of material including her own photographs, she emphasizes the importance of the role of the image as a means of recognition in an on-going timeless process: “Those photographs that provide people with a sense of who they have been, in order perhaps to make sense of who they
JoJo, Carol and Lisa at the corner of Prince Street and Mott Street, Little Italy, New York, 1976, from the series Prince Street Girls, 1975–90
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Endnotes Allan Sekula, “Photography and the Limits of National Identity”, in Camera Austria International, no. 95, 2006. 2 New York Times Magazine, 30 July 1978, Life, September 1981, The Times, 21 February 1982. During this period, Susan Meiselas also worked in the Philippines, Columbia, Chile, Indonesia, Argentina and Mexico. 3 The title refers to the address in New York. 4 In 1971, Meiselas did a photography course while undertaking her masters at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. After graduating that year, she started working on ways in which to use visual media in schools. 5 Extract from Meiselas’s photographic series 44 Irving Street, 1971. 6 Kristen Lubben, “An interview with Susan Meiselas”, Susan Meiselas. In History, International Center of Photography and Steidl, New York, Göttingen, 2008, p.17. 7 Ibid, p.16. 8 Learn to See (1972–74) is a project by Meiselas on teaching visual literacy. Learn to See: A sourcebook of photography projects by teachers and students, edited by Susan Meiselas (Cambridge Mass.: Polaroid Foundation, 1974) was published the same year that Meiselas started the Porch Portraits, Ibid., p.17. 9 Meiselas spent her early years in similar rural surroundings (Virginia). 10 “L’intégration sociale passe par l’inscription spatiale, l’identité renvoie à une altérité qui trouve dans l’espace des formes d’exclusion et des formes d’inclusion, des formes nécessaires à la régulation des apports extérieurs qui marquent, altèrent et renouvellent la composition d’un groupe social... Un territoire a une valeur dans une géographie des représentations du monde. Cette géographie articule la circonscription d’un ici à la saisie d’un nous, comme elle articule la mise à l’écart d’un ailleurs à l’exclusion d’un autre.” Pierre Pellegrino, Le sens de l’espace. L’époque et le lieu, Paris, éd. Economica, 2000, p.12. 11 Only one person invited Meiselas to take their portrait inside a house. 12 Extract of the project description by Meiselas in a letter she wrote to the Polaroid Foundation, 24 May 1975. 13 Ibid. 14 Meiselas used this opportunity to involve the school children and the community in photography as a medium. They requisitioned the school darkroom for printing the new images. 15 Kurdistan: In the Shadow of History (1997), Chile from Within (1990), Archives of Abuse (1991), Encounters with the Dani (2001–03) for example. 1
16 “Space is only active, therefore, because it is made up of places where things are located within a force-field at any particular moment (Feingold 2004). In a Leibnizian view it is the powers of events and objects taking place that make space appear ‘active’”, John Agnew, “Space and place”, in J. Agnew and D. Livingstone, Handbook of Geographical Knowledge, London, Sage, 2011, chapter 23, p. 9. 17 A small Central American country defined by the borders with Honduras (to the north) and Costa Rica (to the south), the Caribbean sea to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Its turbulent twentieth-century history is due to the direct American involvement in Nicaraguan politics. 18 Meetings still occur between Meiselas and some of the “Prince Street Girls”, who have moved out of this neighbourhood to other parts of New York or, in the case of one girl, abroad. Apparently, the images bring them together “just as before”. 19 Meiselas, extract from the voice-over, Pictures from a Revolution, film, 1991. 20 In 1991, Meiselas realised a commission on domestic violence: Archives of Abuse (1991–92) using the investigations of the San Francisco Police department as the archive material. 21 A Room of Their Own, West Bromwich, Multistory, 2017. 22 Meiselas talks about the Kurdistan project in an interview with Melissa Harris, “Susan Meiselas”, in On Location: Studio visits with Annie Leibovitz, Lorna Simpson, Susan Meiselas, Cindy Sherman, Adam Fuss, Joël-Peter Witkin, Jon Goodman, New York, Aperture, 1993, p. 24.
Returning home from Manhattan Beach, Little Italy, New York, 1978, from the series Prince Street Girls, 1975–90
Pia Viewing | Digging Down to the Meaning of Place
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