Last year, to great acclaim, we launched an exhibit in October entitled Eye of the Beholder. We took a single image from our holdings and sent out a call in September for anybody within UAA and APU to provide interpretation of the image. That interpretation would then be used for the exhibit.
Understand, this is not just A&SC being lazy. Well, it’s a little bit about that, but more about opening up our eyes–archivists and researchers alike–to what can be made of archival holdings. A very nice piece of advocacy, especially during October which is Archives Month nationally. And did we ever get wonderful responses. Wonderful enough to try it again.
National Geographic Society Katmai expedition photograph
So here’s the 2009 photograph. We’ll tell you this much about it. The photograph was taken in 1919 in the Valley of 10,000 Smokes (Katmai). The photographer was Emery Clifford Kolb, one of a number of people on a National Geographic expedition to the Katmai area that year. The men are cooking food over a fumarole. National Geographic was conducting the expedition to trace the effects of the 1911 Katmai eruption.
From there on, it’s up to you. What do you have to say about this image? Would you like to interpret it from your own area of expertise whether it be scientific, historical, hiking, or culinary? Or anything else? Are you a graphic artist who would like to take the image and alter it and use it in some way? Does it prompt a story, a poem, a song? Or an Op-Ed piece?
If you can email your submissions, use the Contact Us link above. Or you can always drop them by during our open hours. Do remember that submissions become the property of A&SC and we retain the rights to use it in the exhibit and also in a permanent online version of the exhibit. Being good archivists, we cite everything, so please provide your name and contact information. If you need a higher resolution copy of the image to do whatever it is you want to do with this image, email us and we’ll get that to you. Thanks. And thanks for participating in Eye of the Beholder 2.
Oh, deadline for submissions is September 28. The exhibit is scheduled to be on display in A&SC’s reading room through the month of October.