Room 301, 3F Building 10, Sophia University
In Person only / No registration required
Abstract: How do we enter into, look at, and make sense of family albums? In this talk, I examine archival practices that emerge out of working with a repository of albums that documents my own family's life as Indian immigrants in Japan between 1976 and 2010. These albums and the photographs they contain operate as material and ethnographic objects that decay over time. Writing about these albums demands that I occupy shifting positions: as a subject and critic of these images; as an archivist who preserves the albums; and a daughter inheriting the photographs, who has herself migrated. As the albums travel between Japan, India and the United States, I consider what it means to dwell within these familiar archives, reflecting on methods of reading and writing about images that are among the most intimate representations of selfhood and community that I have encountered.
For more info: https://www.icc-sophia.com/post/reading-family-albums-indian-immigrants-in-tokyo-1976-2010
