In Visible Presence: Soviet Afterlives in Family Photos

square 4to, hardcover, 488pp. ìSarkisova and Shevchenko have produced a brilliant study of the powerful ways in which family photographs work, both privately and publicly, to manifest and sacralize the nation. Their case is the Soviet Union, vitally important. But their insights also challenge the reader to compare and contrast. Essential reading for our time.î óLaura Wexler, Charles H. Farnam Professor of American Studies, Professor of Womenís, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and Co-Chair of the Womenís Faculty Forum at Yale University; author of Tender Violence ìSarkisova and Shevchenko offer a powerful, materially rich analysis of Soviet-era family photographs as affective touchstones for memory, loss, and absences. Itís poignant timeliness in a new era of conflict is a reminder of the power of photography to shapeóand be shaped byóthe social, cultural, and political landscape.î óDonna West Brett, Associate Professor and Chair of Art History at the School of Art, Communication and English, University of Sydney; author of Photography and Place ìThe delayed, liquid time of the snapshot spills over the decades in Sarkisova and Shevchenkoís documentation of the vernacular underbelly of totalitarianism. Presences and silences jostle against each other in an incisive narrative of how everyday images inform citizen historiography. This is a compelling and tragically topical investigation.î ó Christopher Pinney, Professor, Anthropology and Visual Culture, Department of Anthropology, University College London; coauthor of Artisan Camera: Studio Photography from Central India L'autore 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 í55 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.