PRESS RELEASE
UNFOLDING MEMORIES
An Exhibition by the Draiflessen Collection
October 18, 2026 – February 7, 2027

What do we see when we leaf through someone else’s photo albums? What stories do the images tell when we do not even know the people depicted? This exhibition explores private photo albums as unique repositories of memory. Selected albums from the Brenninkmeijer family, drawn from the archive of the Draiflessen Collection, are juxtaposed with contemporary artistic positions, opening up a perspective on remembering that is both personal and societal. The exhibition demonstrates that photo albums do not simply preserve the past; they organize, shape, and continually retell it.

Private Photo Albums Are Far More Than Collections of Personal Memories
Whether assembled intuitively or at random, the creators of photo albums bring together photographed experiences in sequences of images, with meaning unfolding only as the pages are turned. In this way, individual photographs coalesce into visual narratives in which personal and family histories are interpreted, organized, and sometimes even rewritten. Although the organizing principles behind these albums often resist a clear and definitive reading, and although the people and places depicted may be unfamiliar to us, the photographs nonetheless awaken our own memories, evoking feelings of intimacy, closeness, and familiarity—but also of unease, loss, and estrangement.
The exhibition takes as its starting point approximately seventeen photo albums associated with the Brenninkmeijer family, dating from the late nineteenth century through the 1940s and held in the Draiflessen Collection. The occasions documented in these photographs largely follow the conventions of their time: family celebrations, travel, childhood, and social representation. Likewise, the interiors of photographic studios, the poses, and the motifs reflect the aesthetic, social, and technical standards of their respective eras. As a result, the albums mirror what was typical and stereotypical for their time, while simultaneously telling highly individual stories.

Remembering Is a Performative and Selective Process
In the exhibition, these historical albums enter into dialogue with works by international contemporary artists. The show brings together works by Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Tina Barney, Bieke Depoorter, Jim Goldberg, Lebohang Kganye, Dayanita Singh, Jiro Takamatsu, Fiona Tan, Karine Zenja Versluis, and Gillian Wearing, all of whom engage with photography, family history, and memory.
The practices of collecting, arranging, and omitting that are visible within the albums are echoed in the artists’ working methods. Why do we collect images of ourselves? Which photographs find their way into albums, and which are left out? Who is considered part of a family, and who is not? How can a family history be told through images? What role do social and geographical circumstances play in these narratives?

Through this juxtaposition, it becomes clear that memory is never neutral. Rather, the artworks reveal remembering as a performative and selective process that is always embedded within broader social, political, and economic power structures. The artists examine both the photo album as a medium and the individual photograph as an ostensibly reliable repository of memory. The exhibition creates a space of resonance between the unfamiliar and the familiar, the past and the present, memory and photography. In the dynamic interplay between artworks and albums, visitors are invited to inscribe their own memories and associations into these narratives.

A richly illustrated exhibition catalogue will be published in German, English, and Dutch, offering further perspectives on the exhibition and deepening engagement with its themes.