Suspended Conversations: The Afterlife of Memory in Photographic Albums

M. Wayne Cunningham is a past executive director of the Saskatchewan
Arts Board and the former director of Academic and Career Programs at
East Kootenay Community College.

“How shall we remember everybody?” is the intriguing thematic
question posed in this marvellous compilation of family photographs. The
author, currently an independent curator, is the founding director of
the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography.

The black-and-white snapshots depict individuals, families, groups,
picnics, scenery, and events, all frozen in time and space. Some are
identified with names, places, or dates. Others are out of focus or
poorly composed, missing the top of a head or part of a limb.
Langford’s insightful explanations help us to understand from an
artistic point of view why we find these photographs so entrancing, and
why they trigger the memory responses they do. She discusses the
storytelling nature of photo albums and suggests that in order to
re-experience the photographs fully “our mimetic photographic memories
need a mnemonic framework to keep them accessible and alive.” That is,
both sight and sound need to come into play.

The text is supported with chapter notes, an extensive bibliography,
and a beguiling index of information on the photographs, including their
size, the albums from which they came, who compiled them, the type of
prints they are, and sometimes intimate details (e.g., “a personal
collection of family portraits dating from J.T. Molson’s first
marriage to Lillian Savage and continuing after her death in 1866 with
his second marriage to Jennie B. Butler”). Suspended Conversations
will appeal to scholars and general readers alike.