Soldaten en graven 1943

This undated photo collage, titled ‘Soldiers and Graves’ from an anonymous maker invites us to consider the role of imagery in shaping our understanding of war. Here, we have a set of images which are arranged in a scrapbook. This presentation makes the images feel intimate, like we are glimpsing into personal memories. Looking at the photographs themselves, we can see different scenes related to military life. There is one of soldiers with a vehicle, one of soldiers in a field and finally one with graves decorated with wreaths. As a collection, these images bring together different aspects of military experience. But in this presentation, the realities of war are framed within a personal narrative. To understand such an artifact fully, it's important to investigate the culture that created it. Scraps like this, preserved by individual hands, create their own vernacular archive of social experience.