AUDIO
UNFOLDING MEMORIES
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UNFOLDING MEMORIES – Introduction
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AUDIO
Introduction
Welcome to the Draiflessen Collection.
My name is Jonas Schoster, and I work in the department for museum education. Our work here includes making the content of our exhibitions more engaging and easier for visitors to understand. I am delighted to spend some time with you in the exhibition Unfolding Memories.
You don’t have to follow a set path through the exhibition. You can select any station of the audio guide whenever you like. This allows you to explore the exhibition at your own pace.
Many of us know what it feels like to open an old photo album. We immediately recognize some of the people in the pictures, but aren’t always sure about others. Sometimes only people’s faces remain, their names and stories long forgotten.
The exhibition takes precisely this aspect of photo albums as it’s point of departure. The show revolves around seventeen historical albums from the circle of the Brenninkmeijer family of entrepreneurs. They date from a time when photo albums played an important role in family life. Here, people collected and arranged photographs, added captions, and looked at the pictures together.
Today we can no longer identify most of the people in these photographs with any certainty. This changes the way we view the albums. They lose their function as bearers of personal memories, and instead become visual records that can tell us something about the way people lived at the time they were created.
The exhibition brings these historical albums into conversation with works by contemporary artists. Many of them also explore family photographs, memories, and the question of how people view and recount their past. The processes of collecting, arranging, preserving, but also of excluding and forgetting, play an important role in these pieces.
A number of questions crop up over and over again: How are memories created? What do we hold on to, and what disappears over time? Which stories do photographs tell, and which ones do they leave out?
Examining these questions clearly reveals that remembering is not a neutral process. Memories change, shaped by experiences, perspectives, and feelings. For this reason, photo albums never only tell us just about the past. They also have stories to share about how people actually see their past.
You’ll find the historical photo albums at four stations in the middle of the exhibition space, surrounded by the contemporary works of art. Together they engage in a multilayered conversation about family, photography, and memory.
I hope you enjoy exploring the exhibition.
My name is Jonas Schoster, and I work in the department for museum education. Our work here includes making the content of our exhibitions more engaging and easier for visitors to understand. I am delighted to spend some time with you in the exhibition Unfolding Memories.
You don’t have to follow a set path through the exhibition. You can select any station of the audio guide whenever you like. This allows you to explore the exhibition at your own pace.
Many of us know what it feels like to open an old photo album. We immediately recognize some of the people in the pictures, but aren’t always sure about others. Sometimes only people’s faces remain, their names and stories long forgotten.
The exhibition takes precisely this aspect of photo albums as it’s point of departure. The show revolves around seventeen historical albums from the circle of the Brenninkmeijer family of entrepreneurs. They date from a time when photo albums played an important role in family life. Here, people collected and arranged photographs, added captions, and looked at the pictures together.
Today we can no longer identify most of the people in these photographs with any certainty. This changes the way we view the albums. They lose their function as bearers of personal memories, and instead become visual records that can tell us something about the way people lived at the time they were created.
The exhibition brings these historical albums into conversation with works by contemporary artists. Many of them also explore family photographs, memories, and the question of how people view and recount their past. The processes of collecting, arranging, preserving, but also of excluding and forgetting, play an important role in these pieces.
A number of questions crop up over and over again: How are memories created? What do we hold on to, and what disappears over time? Which stories do photographs tell, and which ones do they leave out?
Examining these questions clearly reveals that remembering is not a neutral process. Memories change, shaped by experiences, perspectives, and feelings. For this reason, photo albums never only tell us just about the past. They also have stories to share about how people actually see their past.
You’ll find the historical photo albums at four stations in the middle of the exhibition space, surrounded by the contemporary works of art. Together they engage in a multilayered conversation about family, photography, and memory.
I hope you enjoy exploring the exhibition.