Remond. Émile, Adolphe. 34 ans, né à Bagnolet (Seine). Carrier. Anarchiste. 26/2/94. 1894

Editor: This gelatin silver print, titled "Remond. Émile, Adolphe. 34 ans, né à Bagnolet (Seine). Carrier. Anarchiste. 26/2/94," was created in 1894 by Alphonse Bertillon. There's something unsettling about its directness. What do you see in this piece that might reveal more about its historical or cultural significance? Curator: The photograph strikes me as a relic, bearing witness to anxieties about identity, law, and order at the turn of the century. Note how Bertillon’s process attempts to classify Remond with script and numbering like an artifact or specimen. Does the gaze seem vacant? Editor: I suppose, somewhat blank and uniform. Curator: The symmetry, combined with the detached inscription, aims to reduce Remond to a set of measurable characteristics, almost as if to preemptively diagnose “anarchist” traits. What’s more unsettling to me is how photography, a medium initially celebrated for its truthfulness, is here weaponized as an instrument of social control. The image and his anarchist label now merge, branding him indefinitely. Editor: So the image isn’t just a portrait, but also a symbol? Curator: Exactly. The image becomes a potent emblem of authority, capable of evoking not only the individual, but a perceived threat to social norms. What do we retain as cultural memory, I wonder? Is it Remond’s face, his alleged crime, or the dehumanizing gaze of the system that imprisoned him? Editor: It’s almost haunting to realize how much power resides in a single image. Curator: Indeed. This "portrait" urges us to remember those lost in history's march— the cost of labeling people. Perhaps, by facing such stark depictions, we may strive to uphold human dignity within shifting sands of time and political turbulence.