Bergen in de Zwitserse plaatsen Flims-Dorf en Flims-Waldhaus, tijdens een vakantie van de familie Wachenheimer, augustus 1936, Zwitserland 1936 - 1938

Curator: Let’s discuss "Bergen in de Zwitserse plaatsen Flims-Dorf en Flims-Waldhaus, tijdens een vakantie van de familie Wachenheimer, augustus 1936, Zwitserland" a gelatin-silver print, dating roughly between 1936 and 1938. The photos depict landscape views of the mountains around Flims, taken during the Wachenheimer family vacation. Editor: Oh, this photograph…it feels like looking through someone’s forgotten scrapbook. The small, grainy images whisper of another time, doesn't it? Almost melancholy. Curator: Absolutely, I think part of that sensation stems from its context within a family album. We must consider the album itself as a product, as well as a repository. These weren’t presented as "high art," but items intended for personal memory and documentation. How were such images used by the middle-class Wachenheimer family, and others like them at the time? Editor: I agree. Thinking about those tangible objects--the careful way these silver prints were fixed and slotted into the album--lends to the images' own stories: that day in the mountains, maybe the weight of the camera, and of course the gentle act of pressing leaves in it. It also has me musing on what escapes the frame? Curator: Precisely. There are a lot of socio-economic components intertwined within. The labor involved, not just in photography itself, but the availability of photography to this family specifically, versus the labour needed for paper production or silver mining needed to create the photo. I find all that embedded labor just so compelling to examine. Editor: That's interesting; it feels a little abstract. When I view it, it speaks more to the power of mundane moments, and how something simple can become an intimate relic. A day of holiday distilled into little squares! There's magic there for me. Curator: It is a very evocative print to view. Editor: Definitely. Thank you, it has left me contemplative of all things material, and ethereal!