Untitled (medium format images of young girls posing indoors with toys) 1961

Curator: It's like a ghost story, but with toys. Editor: Today, we're looking at a photographic work by Martin Schweig, "Untitled (medium format images of young girls posing indoors with toys)." It's a medium format negative, diminutive at just 12 by 6 centimeters. Curator: The materiality is stark. This stark negative feels like memory seared onto film. Like the hidden corners of childhood, simultaneously sweet and eerie. Editor: Given its presentation as a negative, the means of production itself comes to the fore. The domesticity of the scene is disrupted by the photographic process, a material intervention. Curator: Maybe that's why it lingers. A play with light and shadow reveals a truth about how we hold onto childhood. It's a fragile thing, isn't it? Editor: Yes, and here it is, exposed and developed, a poignant artifact of material culture and lived experience.