As a child, I - like most kids, I imagine - had a hazy knowledge of and critical detachment from the realities of the adult world, and a vague sense of the future that lay ahead, something I regarded with optimism but also nervousness. Which is probably why these images and the accompanying text - taken from Wendy Ewald's book Portraits And Dreams: Photographs And Stories By Children Of The Appalachians - strike such a chord.
Unlike Derek Bishton, Brian Homer and John Reardon in 1970s Handsworth, Ewald was uninterested in producing pictures that might confirm or contradict the prevailing narratives (and prejudices) about the chosen location - in this case, Letcher County in the Cumberland Mountains, on the border between Kentucky and Virginia. However, she clearly shared their fascination with "the way the people pictured themselves" (in the words of the Paris Review's Rebecca Bengal).
Teaching the art of photography in local schools, Ewald ensured that children were equipped with technical know-how but more importantly coached them in developing the capacity to think carefully and creatively about image making. That she succeeded in firing their imaginations is evident from the results - which, as Bengal says, are "enigmatic and narrative", but "also have the most ephemeral quality of all: the ability to capture a time before the dreams are forgotten".
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