MEMORIES OF MEXICO 1958
Atrium Gallery, Centrepointe
101 Centrepointe Drive
On view: October 24 – November 26, 2014
Vernissage: October 28, 2014, 6- 8 pm
Two summers ago one of my daughters decided to reduce the chaos in my closets. The unexpected result was MEMORIES OF MEXICO 1958 when she found a cardboard box containing curled 8x10in prints and loose negatives. After five children, many moves, floods and no filing system both prints and negatives were in bad condition. I had forgotten the work I had done as a teenager attending the Instituto Allende in San Miguel de Allende back in 1958. Mentally it was filed as bad student work, and life got in the way of further photographic development. Fifty years later, the work showed its potential value.
Unfortunately many negatives are missing with only bad prints to show what might have been. But I salvaged twenty negatives of sufficient quality to scan and process digitally for this exhibition. They show aspects of San Miguel and Guanajuato still existing today, as they were half a century ago. As anywhere, Mexico has changed, with the number of cars and the amount of tourism very visible evidence. No longer are there the empty streets although many of the same buildings can be seen in these heritage towns. Markets still exist and farmacias are still in business in San Miguel. The scenes in many of the photographs are still recognizable today, even if the facades are less visible through the traffic and crowds of tourists.
Designed by Michael Tardioli, the show’s poster evokes movie posters of the fifties.
Abby Gossage
October 15, 2014
Ottawa
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Vivian Maier was discovered by a buyer in an auction sale, and you were discovered by your daughter in a housecleaning!
Wonderful photographs which shows Abby had an insightful eye even as a younger photographer