Bunkerbewaking 1940 - 1944

This photo album page, called Bunkerbewaking, from an unknown artist, is a document of time, a recording of place. I think about what it’s like to be this artist, assembling this page. Pasting them down. Trying to hold onto something. But I know that feeling. Putting things together to see if they make sense. Each image is like a thought or a memory, sticking close to other thoughts and memories. The artist is trying to freeze something ephemeral, like the surface tension of a pond, or the feeling of standing next to your pals, trying to look brave. The sepia tones makes me nostalgic, like an old movie about war. And I think about the way that one image can inform another, the way each picture is in conversation with all the others. Each a fragment in a much bigger story. It’s that feeling of holding on, that artists reach out and grab, and wrestle with, and then they pin it down so you can see it too.