Franse kust 1940 - 1943

Curator: This is a series of gelatin silver prints assembled into a photo album entitled "Franse kust," which translates to "French Coast," dating from 1940 to 1943, made by an anonymous photographer. What's your take, immediately? Editor: It feels haunted. Like memories washed ashore, bleached by the sun and fog. Each photo is a little fragmented dream. Curator: Interesting. We should note the materials; gelatin silver prints are developed using a process that emphasizes tonal range, giving us those luminous greys and blacks. The anonymous aspect of the maker is important too. It shifts the focus from individual authorship to a record of a shared experience of place and potentially history. These years evoke a dark era in France's story during World War II, even in these quiet monochrome beaches, that context resonates. Editor: I’m stuck on how small and contained each photograph feels in its frame. Like snippets overheard, or a poem whispered in secret. There is an individual silhouetted alone against the vastness of the sea in one, but also a small crowd in a boat facing an ocean. Those juxtapositions resonate deeply with the unease of wartime, don't you think? It reminds me of personal mementos amidst historical shifts. Curator: The modernist aesthetic, its detachment, lends itself to viewing the shoreline as material subject to observation. The rough, ragged borders of each print, as if torn from a larger sheet, hints at the economics of production and availability of resources. This speaks to the practical realities during the years in which these photographs were produced. Even mundane subject matter gains meaning. Editor: Material realities expressed through atmosphere… I find myself picturing this photographer on a windswept beach, dodging…what? Judgment? Is it capturing solace, evidence, a goodbye? Each shot like a melancholic sigh… Curator: Ultimately, we have these gelatin silver prints showing us, through modernistic photography, French coastal communities during a specific period in the twentieth century. A unique record presented via accessible materials. Editor: Beautifully put. It is haunting to consider an anonymous author documenting, reflecting, during such somber days on those distant beaches. The mundane becomes the monumental; a quiet testimony.