‘Foto Americain — Wie zijn wij’ in Fotomuseum Den Haag
Ernst Lalleman, Fotomuseum Den Haag
DISCIPLINES
Exhibition
Uncover the faces and stories of a diverse 1960s community
DISCIPLINES
Exhibition
About the exhibition
In the 1980s, in a squat in The Hague, photographer Ernst Lalleman found six boxes containing 234 large-screen negatives. They turned out to be color portraits of mostly unknown residents of The Hague, made by Foto Americain between 1959-1960. With his project Who are we, Ernst Lalleman tries to identify the people portrayed and give a face to a cross-section of the Hague population from the 1960s.
From Saturday December 18, all 234 portraits can be seen in the Fotomuseum The Hague. In collaboration with Ernst Lalleman and Wim van Sinderen, we developed the design for the exhibition, in which the visitor is introduced to the original portraits and Ernst’s own work on three of the identified people.
About the Design
In the first two rooms, visitors are invited to explore the stories behind the original portraits and see what life was like in the 1960s. Having a photo taken was a special affair at that time. Everyone was dressed in their best and having the photo taken had a purpose; capturing the moment for a distant loved one or family abroad. A diverse mix of people of different ages and cultural backgrounds are portrayed. We decided to create a design that shows them all equally to reveal the full story. The repetition of the dimensions, the subjects, the decorative objects in the photographs and the enormous number of portraits, the visitor may then wonder: why were these photographs taken, and above all, for whom?
60 years after the Foto Americain portraits were made, Ernst Lalleman began his search for the people in the photos. He visited three of the identified people to photograph and interview them. These visits can be seen in the last room of the exhibition, which zooms in on the further course of the lives of the three people Lalleman interviewed. By designing the sentences from these interviews in the exhibition as a timeline, quotes in combination with the new photos appear on the wall like a poem in time. The conversations are often about the important moments in their lives after the Foto Americain portraits and tell the story behind the people in the photos.
“The visitor is invited to explore the stories behind the original portraits and see what life was like in the 1960s.”
“The design equally showcases all portraits, revealing a cross-section of The Hague’s population.”
Colophon
Initiator: Ernst Lalleman
Curator: Wim van Sinderen
Design: Studio Renate Boere