Untitled (IMB meetings, attendees looking towards camera) c. 1940

Curator: This photograph, taken by Harris & Ewing, captures an IBM meeting with attendees looking towards the camera. There is no date associated with the work. Editor: There’s an unsettling uniformity to it, almost clinical. The stark lighting flattens the room, and the sea of faces all turned in the same direction feels a bit… sterile. Curator: Uniformity in this context reads to me as a symbol of mid-century corporate culture and ambition. The sea of white shirts represents a kind of unified front, looking toward the future. Editor: But is it truly unified, or is it manufactured? We see the trappings of wealth—the ornate ceiling, the tailored suits. I wonder about the labor behind those surfaces, the unseen hands that produced the very image we're looking at. Curator: You raise an important point. This photograph, as a historical document, also serves as a cultural artifact that reflects the era’s corporate image: order and looking ahead to the future. Editor: It also exposes the artifice behind the corporate facade, doesn't it? The photo, in its materiality, reflects and perpetuates a system of labor and consumption. Curator: I appreciate your perspective. It reminds me how symbols, even those seemingly straightforward, carry layers of complex cultural weight. Editor: And examining the materials and conditions of their production reveals the structures that uphold those symbols. A photograph is never just a photograph.