Untitled (adults and three young girls sitting in living room during Christmas event) 1962

Curator: This photograph, currently entitled "Untitled," by Martin Schweig, captures a family gathering during what appears to be a Christmas event. The image measures approximately 10 by 13 centimeters and is held in the Harvard Art Museums. Editor: There's something haunting about this domestic scene, almost ghostly. The inverted tones give it a strange, ethereal quality. You can almost smell the pine needles, but it is more complex than that. Curator: The inversion of the image adds to the understanding of the image as a social artifact. The adults and children are posed formally, within a staged environment, suggesting specific gender roles and expectations within a 20th-century American family. Editor: Look at the elaborate fireplace and the detail of the carpet, though. These are material signifiers of wealth and a comfortable lifestyle; they speak to the means of production and consumption within this social class. Curator: Yes, and it's important to consider that these posed images can reflect both lived experience and aspired-to identities, reinforcing the social hierarchies of the time. Editor: Perhaps. But for me, the ghostly quality of the materiality outweighs the rest. Curator: It's a fascinating lens through which to view cultural history, isn't it? Editor: Indeed.