2026 SPE Annual Conference: Catalyst for Exchange
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print this page7 Pictures Remaining
Meggan Gould
Saturday, November 08 - 1:30PM to 2:00PM
In 2021, I went to the technology collections of the California Museum of Photography (CMP) for the first time. I was on a mission to collect iconography from camera bodies and lens barrels for an ongoing project. While there, perusing the thousands of cameras, I accidentally opened the back of one, and ruined the film that I was shocked to find inside.
With the blessing of the curators, I returned explicitly to open each of the cameras in the collection, looking to tease out lurking frames of exposed film. We found more than 100 rolls of film, which I developed and have worked with for the past three years. The CMP invited me to show this work there this year; unfortunately this exhibition will come down this summer, a few months before the November conference. However, I would love this opportunity to prepare an ImageMaker presentation at CMP, sharing my observations and musings that stemmed from their collections. I will speak about these specific found images, about photography and loss, about camera technologies and their physical hold on us, about leather cases, about language on camera bodies, and about the emotional toll of the responsibility for anonymous photographs. I will examine the apparatus of vision itself, its language and its tactile presentation to the user. I am thrilled at an opportunity to present this at the site of the origin of this project, and would love to be able to arrange a visit to the camera vault for interested conference attendees.
speaker
Meggan Gould
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