“There are a lot of stories out there, some probably written and stored with old photographs in shoeboxes in attics.” It is true that old portrait photographs usually undergo complex life biographies. While some are preserved in shoeboxes in attics, other are abandoned, and disintegrate with time, or are purposefully destroyed during historical upheavals. Unearthing these photographs and retelling their stories is precisely what the online project entitled “The Portrait Project” endeavours to achieve.
“The Portrait Project” is an outstanding project initiated by Daphne Ang Ming Li. It aims at locating and archiving mid-19th and early 20th centuries photographs from personal family albums of the Peranakan community: the descendants of late 15th and 16th centuries Chinese immigrants in Singapore and other settlements in Southeast Asia.
This online project is established as part of the author’s doctoral thesis (“The Production of Portraiture under the Patronage of the Straits Chinese in Colonial Singapore”). Daphne Ang Ming Li is a PhD candidate in the department of History of Art and Archaeology at the School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London). This very research project has already received an international recognition: she has been appointed research fellow at the National University of Singapore (NUS) Museum which has dedicated an exhibition of portraits of the early Chinese Diaspora directly related to her discoveries; besides she has also participated in several conferences notably last January 2014 at the Royal Asiatic Society.
What was the production of portraiture under the patronage of the Straits Chinese society in pre-independence Singapore? How the present day ‘guardians’ talk about the life biographies of such photographs? By unearthing hidden family photographs, Daphne Ang Ming Li attempts to (re)construct the development of portraiture at that time. More than an individual research, “The Portrait Project” is more importantly an online archive through which everyone can participate, share anecdotes, and evoke memories. The point is to submit a photograph and tell the story: who is portrayed? When and where the photograph was taken? What was the occasion? All these questions intend to cope with the fact that most photographs are hidden in family albums and personal archives. Thanks to their participation, the website now look at the practice of portraiture as a wider tradition.
Finally “The Portrait Project” raises the fundamental issue of destruction and loss. According to the author, most of the photographic archives were burnt during the Japanese Occupation of Singapore in the Second World War (1942-1945). This is the reason why such digital archive seems perhaps the most valuable tool to re-appropriate one’s past and consequently understand better to what extent it has repercussions upon one’s present and future.
Undoubtedly, this digital repository will become a fundamental database containing a collection of ‘living chronicles’ from personal family albums, which will significantly contribute to the study of portrait photography in Singapore.
http://portraitsofthestraits.wordpress.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrW9vCZs5yI
