Re-Imagining the Collection of the Kreis Family

Abstract

Drawing on the idea of family photography as objects of knowledge and the theory of sensory in the communicative power of photographs, this article explores how the Kreis Family Collection (1850–1980) can be presented visually and acoustically on an archival platform and how it generates new knowledge in this process. Our central result is a virtual image-sound installation that allows the same photographs to be re-imagined in three contrasting acoustic ‘moods’, based on the argument that family photography’s ‘show and tell’ is an open-ended performance, in which the user of an archival platform is asked to participate.