Books As Memory Objects
The coffee-table book sits heavy on a bookcase in my friend’s house. Every time I visit, it catches my eye. The heavy features convey its weighty substance. The extra-large hardcover edition of Before They Pass Away is a noticeable book. From cover to cover it counts 423 pages and weighs nearly 5.5 kilograms. “Insightful portraits of people who are the guardians of a culture that they—and we—hope will be passed on to future generations in all its glory”, reads the flap. As I leaf through the pages, frequently pausing to marvel at vivid scenes, I become aware of my own interaction with the book. In what way does the physical form of the book affect me as a viewer? And how does the presentation of these portraits influence their reception?
Image: Before They Pass Away by Jimmy Nelson
A coffee-table book is not some photo album easily brought along; its referential name alludes to its purpose. This type of work is meant to be displayed (on a coffee table), meant to be noticed by visitors and bound to be remembered. Photographs are commonly thought of as two-dimensional images, favoured for their content. A common way of thinking about photographs has it that photographs are two-dimensional images, favoured for their content. However, this idea omits the third dimension produced by the way photographs are displayed. And I believe that their presentation profoundly affects their content.
Image: Coffee-table books also make great thrones
The similarities between a coffee-table book and a photo album are apparent. These book-shaped containers for photographic content are unique cultural products of individualistic, and in this case artistic, expression. The processes of selecting, organising, and captioning the photographs transform their meaning. Former director of the museum studies program at the University of Florida Glenn Willumson characterizes the photo album, specifically at the moment of its creation, as a personal artefact that contains a record of people and events, rich with biography and personal memory. I belief this is a valuable view that concerns Before They Pass Away as well, even though this not a personal photo album, but an artistic project.
Photographer Jimmy Nelson is open about his personal drive in creating the photographic project. In the final pages of the book, he clearly states that it had always been his dream to preserve our world’s tribes by documenting “their purity in places where untouched culture still exists” through his photography. However, if Before They Pass Away was, in a sense, a personal artefact at the moment of its creation, then this changed at the moment of its circulation as a coffee-table book. Only after careful inspection of the content the photographer’s personal motivation becomes clear; the form of the object transports it from the personal sphere to the public.
Image: Collector’s Edition
The form of a coffee-table book requires physical engagement. Its weight and size demand intimacy in a way that single prints, no matter what size, can never do. The viewer has a bodily connection with the object during the act of viewing, either by supporting the book on the lap or by leafing through its glossy pages. It seems to me that, when it comes to remembering, the form of a coffee-table book has significant advantages over other presentational forms, such as single print-form. Particularly because the book’s element of tactility links closely to the treatment of other objects that have value as memorial relics, such as jewellery. And object that requires—or allows—tactile interaction has the power to subconsciously increase engagement.
Reminiscence and recollection
The photographic project Before They Pass Away communicates a clear desire to remember as well as a desire to be remembered. The deliberately chosen form of the coffee-table book emphasizes that desire forcefully, maybe even more than its content. The book as a presentational form is a valuable instrument for memory projects. However, in case of Before They Pass Away, two additional effects of this specific form require further attention. First, because of the presentational form of Before They Pass Away certain cultures are included in the object, while others are committed to oblivion. And second, how does being frozen in time and space affect the cultures that are represented in the object?
Batchen, Geoffrey. Forget Me Not: Photography & Remembrance. Van Gogh Museum ; Princeton Architectural Press, 2004.Edwards, Elizabeth, e.a. Photographs Objects Histories : On the Materiality of Images. Routledge, 2004. www.taylorfrancis.com, https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203506493.Nelson, Jimmy. Before They Pass Away. teNeues, 2013.[Tamara Kiewit]