An auto-ethnographic dialogue with archive

Sobers, Shawn

Abstract

This provocation offered an analysis of a piece of photographic artwork I produced, a self-portrait inbetween two enslaved Africans. The Africans portrayed are named Jack and Delia, enslaved on a South Carolina plantation, photographed by Joseph T. Zealy in 1850, commissioned by controversial naturalist Louis Agassiz. The photograph of Delia is disturbing, naked with tears in her eyes.

I offer a dialogue with the self-portrait
montage using Dr Kobi Kambon's 'theory of African American personality' model as the framework for analysis. I talk through relationships with the image through different stages in a lifecycle narrative, such as - shame, self-hatred, awareness, empathy, pride, solidarity, kinship and realisation.

The presentation argues that archives have a rhetoric that can be entirely personal, though all engagement with archives is a form of dialogue. It explores how our engagements with archives can be both visceral and based on prior knowledge.

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (unpublished)
• Conference Name: Reframing Film Heritage
• Start Date: Jul 26, 2018
• End Date: Jul 26, 2018
• Acceptance Date: Jul 26, 2018
• Publication Date: Jul 26, 2018
• Peer Reviewed: Not Peer Reviewed
• Keywords: archives, auto-ethnography, photography, self-portrait, transatlantic slavery, south carolina, peabody institute, harvard, delia, jack, joseph t. Zealy, louis agassiz, kobi kambon
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/864159
• Additional Information: Title of Conference or Conference Proceedings : Reframing Film Heritage