Social Practice

German artist, Anke Heelemann has opened a shop dedicated to archiving and presenting personal photographs that have wandered astray from their original owners to be rediscovered in junk-shops, on ebay and in flea markets.

The FOTOTHEK presents analog imagery of anonymous past lifes. By showing private moments which are no longer remembered, the photographs lose their function as an individual source of memory. The project questions the potential value of these pictures outside of their original context. As the image-material will be reprocessed and reused, it exercises image recycling in order to visualise the narrative, aesthetic and cultural dimension of such images.

As a public space, the FOTOTHEK extends an invitation to everyone who wants to experience the large collection of found photographs. In addition to the ever-changing presentation of the collection, the shop makes various offers with the private image. Although the pictures themselves are not for sale, the shop provides services such as the transmission of image messages, the adoption or rental of photographs. (via the FOTOTHEK blog)

Apparently adopting photos has been quite popular:

Some 100 people have already signed up. “Adoptees” include a picture of a silhouette of a nude woman made out of wire hanging on the wall next to a rubber plant, considered a petty-bourgeois icon in Germany. Another one depicts a group of people and has been dedicated by the adopter to one man, whose head has been cut off in the photograph. There’s a picture of an East German Trabant car chosen by a visitor as a present to his father, who used to drive one just like it. (via Deutsche Welle)