Forget Me Not: Photography and Remembrance

by Geoffrey Batchen

Forget Me Not explores the curious and centuries-old practice of strengthening the emotional appeal of photographs by embellishing them—with text, paint, frames, embroidery, fabric, string, hair, flowers, bullets, cigar wrappers, butterfly wings, and more—to create strange and often beautiful hybrid objects. Available now in paperback, this spellbinding book features color photographs of eighty such objects, extraordinary works of art—part memento, part obsessive assemblage—created by ordinary people from the mid-19th to mid-20th century.

Genres: Photography, Art, History, Art History, Nonfiction

128 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2004

Reviews

[Roy Ng]

"As historical artifacts residing in the present, photographs have therefore come to represent not their subjects, but rather the specter of an impossible desire: the desire to remember, and to be remembered. It is this desire, and the creative effort expended in its pursuit, that is surely the source of their special poignancy. For photographs remind us that memorialization has little to do with recalling the past; it is always about looking ahead toward that terrible, imagined, vacant future in which we ourselves will have been forgotten."

[Hoda Nedaeifar]

زیرا تماشای عکس‌ های قدیمی به یادمان می‌ آورد که عمل درخاطر نگه داشتن ربط چندانی به احضار گذشته ندارد. بلکه اتفاقا به معنای نگاه به آن آینده‌ی خالی، خیالی و دهشتناکی است که در آن ما هم فراموش شده‌ ایم. -صفحه ۹۸

[Eric Byrd]

I could have read this in the hour and a half that I've spent watching WWII documentaries on YouTube. The Princeton Architectual Press makes beautiful books, though their convention booth-standers always appear either flustered or surly when you praise their product.

[Scotch]

A quick, quite beautifully-written survey of photography as vernacular memorabilia. Gorgeous photographs of examples from the exhibition. I only wish it covered a bit more non-Western examples and historical uses.

[isa]

"The degree of slowness is directly proportional to the intensity of memory; the degree of speed is directly proportional to the intensity of forgetting."

Really appreciated how this made me think about these photo-sculptures, how photographs must be transformed, the careful act of mourning. I have so much to consider for work I want to make in relationship to this book.

read for carla williams' remaking the family album seminar during my first year in the image text mfa program

[Aaron the Pink Donut]

A nice little book on the history of keep sakes and remembrances from the mid 19th to the mid 20th century. The reproductions are very good(too few) but the accompanying text is a little lacking. You will find a nice survey of motifs; from lockets to framed hair clippings to large assemblages.

[Adri]

This photo theory book is amazing and so beautiful. Not to mention, Geoffrey Batchen is a wonderfully humble man who, when I complimented him on this book, was modest and kind.

Thank you Geoffrey.

[Jason]

i have a photo published in this book so its sort of an incestral rating. :)

[Holly]

Batchen fills a huge gap in photographic writings. He's fabulous.

[Margot Note]

Geoffrey Batchen, will you marry me? Or at least let me audit your history of photography class?