Early photographs from Vanuatu back to Vanuatu

The University of Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology produced a book with approximately 150 photographs taken in 1914-1915 by anthropologist John Layard in Malakula, ni-Vanuatu. He was among the first British anthropologists to recognize the importance of detailed field research. Layard was on good terms with the people he photographed. Anita Herle writes in the introduction: “His photographs show how local people where actively involved in documenting their kastom (pijin word for traditional culture) and they reveal the friendships that developed between Layard and his hosts.” The photographs are reprinted together with their original captions translated into Bislama, the local language of Malakula. The intention of the book is to “to reconnect his photographs to local people, stories, and places.” Herle further states that “it is hoped that this book will strengthen family and community knowledge of kastom and reinforce ongoing relationships between Cambridge and Vanuatu”. Being a good example of a photographic (or visual) repatriation project it is hoped for this wish to become true.

John Layard: long Malakula 1914-1915
edited by: Haidy Geismar, Anita Herle, Numa Fred Longga
University of Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology wetem Vanuatu Kaljoral Senta

Christoph Rippe’s MA Thesis ‘New Light on Old Images: Historical Photographs from the Mariannhill Mission in KwaZulu-Natal, Then and Now’

Christoph Rippe received the ‘Speckmann-Award 2008′ for having delivered the best MA Thesis in Anthropology at the University of Leiden. In October 2007 Rippe graduated with a report on his research conducted at the National Museum of Ethnology (Leiden) and on location at the Mission station Mariannhill in South-Africa. Rippe became fascinated with a late 19th century collection of photographs made by Catholic missionaries in KwaZulu-Natal. By ‘repatriating’ the photographs to the original site of production (and the missionary station is still active, which makes it even more challenging) he tries to reconnect the collection of images to the descendants of the subjects of the images. In this manner the photographic heritage is acknowledged as one that needs to be shared in order to regain its cross-cultural origins and two-sided history. As Rippe states in the Leiden University Weekly ‘Mare’ (article in Dutch): “I try to figure out how a collaborative approach can lead to a satisfying status of these photographs. Images are a powerful medium. They are perceived much more intuitively than words. Before I repatriated them the photographs existed only in archives. I am trying to provide them with a context now. What are the opinions on these photographs then and now and how is history being made through the use of these images?”

‘Taking a photographic image.’ (Orig. caption: ‘2. Eine photographische Aufnahme.’) Museum Volkenkunde Leiden (TMS A15-118.) Photographer Fr. Isembard Leyendecker is switching roles with one of his photographic subjects.

A blog on Visual Repatriation

This is a weblog under construction, to be dedicated to the fascinating practices and philosophies of “visual repatriation”. In short: Historical photographs, often made with ethnographic purposes, being ‘returned’ to the original sites of production, or, more important, becoming available to the people, either biologically or culturally affiliated with the subjects shown in the pictures. Starting from 2008, Christoph Rippe (MA Cultural Anthropology, Leiden University 2007) and Taco Hidde Bakker (MA Photographic Studies, Leiden University 2007) will regularly write short essays, pose challenging questions and update images and texts on several projects they work on or find interesting, besides submitting links to past and present visual repatriation projects.