Beijing Silvermine

By Andrew Frost

What we take for granted often proves to be the most valuable and in the case of vernacular photography, images of every day life reveal much about lives lived in the recent past. In China access to photography was extremely limited until 1985 when affordable film cameras were sold en masse. For the next 20 years, tens of millions of photographs were snapped to record to gatherings, holidays and families. After 2005 and the introduction of digital cameras, film was quickly replaced and eventually thrown out, destined for recycling for their silver nitrate.

Enter French-born, Beijing resident curator and collector Thomas Sauvin. Making a deal with a local silver nitrate recycler, Sauvin bought negatives by weight, quickly amassing a vast collection of images, the ultimate treasure trove of found images. While the collection offers an unparalleled entry into the lives of others, and as the 4A gallery blurb puts it, “the subject of Beijing Silvermine is as much the wondrous, imperfect and perishable qualities of film photography itself – its delayed surprises between the split-second of exposure and the alchemical magic of development.”

Until February 22

4A, Haymarket

http://www.4a.com.au/beijing-silvermine/

Pic: Photographer and date unknown, Beijing Silvermine, 2014.