Collecting Loss (Carol Mavor)

Carol Mavor speaks of holding on to old photographs and clothing as sort of a bric-a-brac-cluttered world which has been largely overlooked, even when it reaches a space of manic collectomania because it has been naturalized as part of feminine culture. (112)

She seems to be saying that the way we narrate or interpret a photograph reconstructs our lives : "living does not easily organise itself into a continuous narrative. It is only after we have lived through cycles of our lives, in recollection, in photographs, that a narrative comes through."(115) This seems very plausible as many photographs in our possession are ones that we do not hold a current memory of because we were too young at the time. In viewing and going over photographs and memorabilia we interpret and assign a narrative to them on our own or through what has been recounted to us by those who took the picture or were there at the time. By editing family albums to represent certain times and emotions we construct our history and truths.. Sort of like a "general covering over that perpetuates dominant familial myths and ideologies" (we mask pain and reality by "posing’) This is what I wrote about in my previous post.


The feeling I got when reading her work was that a family album to her portrays sadness and loss which I think is kind of depressing. As I’ve mentioned in my previous post, I love pictures and albums ( I have them every where in my house), but to me, it is a way of remembering good times or perhaps not so good and reflecting. I do not feel like I’ve lost something by looking at moments’ passed and gone. I’d rather think of it as a good time that was had and now I’ve moved on, but it will always be part of my memory. "Every photograph is a record of a moment forever lost - snapped up by the camera and mythically presented as evermore."(119)
Mavor also sees tearing or cutting a photograph as a violent act which I am unsure about. I can see it as true in the sense of if it being out of spite; for example tearing up a picture of an old partner at the end of a relationship. These ravished photographs indicate loss and untold stories. But in any photograph I think lies an untold story; it's a moment in time that is fixed on a piece of paper.