In Visible Presence

Soviet Afterlives in Family Photos

Oksana Sarkisova, Olga Shevchenko

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English

MIT Press
07 November 2023

Russian Revolution; Cultural studies

A faded image of a family gathered at a festively served dinner table, raising their glasses in unison. A group of small children, sitting in orderly rows, with stuffed toys at their feet and a portrait of Lenin looming over their heads. A pensive older woman against a snowy landscape, her gaze directed lovingly at a tombstone. These are a few of the evocative images in In Visible Presence by Oksana Sarkisova and Olga Shevchenko, an exquisitely researched book that brings together photographs from Soviet-era family photo archives and investigates their afterlives in Russia.

In Visible Presence explores the photographic images' singular power to capture a fleeting moment by approaching them as points of contestation and possibility. Drawing on over a decade of fieldwork and interviews, as well as internet ethnography, media analysis, and case studies, In Visible Presence offers a rich account of the role of family photography in creating communities of affect, enabling nostalgic longings, and processing memories of suffering, violence, and hardship. Together these photos evoke youthful aspirations, dashed hopes, and moral compromises, as well as the long legacy of silence that was passed down from grandparents to parents to children.

With more than 250 black and white photos, In Visible Presence is an astonishing journey into domestic photography, family memory, and the ongoing debate over the meaning of the Soviet past that is as timely and powerful today as it has ever been.

An absorbing exploration of Soviet-era family photographs that demonstrates the singular power of the photographic image to command attention, resist closure, and complicate the meaning of the past.

A faded image of a family gathered at a festively served dinner table, raising their glasses in unison. A group of small children, sitting in orderly rows, with stuffed toys at their feet and a portrait of Lenin looming over their heads. A pensive older woman against a snowy landscape, her gaze directed lovingly at a tombstone. These are a few of the evocative images in In Visible Presence by Oksana Sarkisova and Olga Shevchenko, an exquisitely researched book that brings together photographs from Soviet-era family photo archives and investigates their afterlives in Russia.

In Visible Presence explores the photographic images' singular power to capture a fleeting moment by approaching them as points of contestation and possibility. Drawing on over a decade of fieldwork and interviews, as well as internet ethnography, media analysis, and case studies, In Visible Presence offers a rich account of the role of family photography in creating communities of affect, enabling nostalgic longings, and processing memories of suffering, violence, and hardship. Together these photos evoke youthful aspirations, dashed hopes, and moral compromises, as well as the long legacy of silence that was passed down from grandparents to parents to children.

With more than 250 black and white photos, In Visible Presence is an astonishing journey into domestic photography, family memory, and the ongoing debate over the meaning of the Soviet past that is as timely and powerful today as it has ever been.

By: Oksana Sarkisova, Olga Shevchenko
Imprint: MIT Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 236mm, Width: 184mm, Spine: 29mm
Weight: 1.202kg
ISBN: 9780262048279
ISBN 10: 0262048272
Pages: 488
Publication Date: 07 November 2023
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

"Preface (xi) Introduction (xiii) Part I: The Soviet Past in the Domestic Archive 1 Time to Choose Your Past (3) 2 Do-It-Yourself Universe (21) 3 Material Lives, Transitional Moments (79) 4 Spaces of Belonging (125) Part II: Questioning ""Transmission"" 5 Seeing Silence (185) 6 Landscapes of Local Memory (233) 7 Generational Frames (257) 8 The Album as Performance (285) Part III: A Different Kind of Presence 9 Labors of Care and Repair (309) 10 Photographs on the March (347) Coda (395) Acknowledgments (403) Appendix: Notes on Method (409) Notes (413) Index (453)"

Oksana Sarkisova is Research Fellow at the Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society Archives and cofounder of the Visual Studies Platform at Central European University. She is the author of Screening Soviet Nationalities and coeditor of Past for the Eyes. Olga Shevchenko is Paul H. Hunn '55 Professor in Social Studies at the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at Williams College. She is the author of Crisis and the Everyday in Postsocialist Moscow and the editor of Double Exposure- Memory and Photography.

Reviews for In Visible Presence: Soviet Afterlives in Family Photos

"""Drawing on more than 50 Soviet-era family photo collections and extensive interviews with their owners, this is a stimulating meditation on how historical artifacts preserve and challenge the past."" —Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW"