AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE SCREENING & PANEL DISCUSSION
Other People’s Pictures [2004: Lorca Shepperd and Cabot Philbrick, 53mins]

Wednesday 4 November 6–8pm
Venue: Centre for Contemporary Photography
404 George Street, Fitzroy

Gold coin donation
Bookings required: T: 03 9905 4217 E: muma@adm.monash.edu.au

MUMA in partnership with CCP present the Australian Premiere of the documentary film Other People’s Pictures, followed by a panel discussion focusing on anonymous and found photography featuring Dr Kyla McFarlane, Assistant Curator - Exhibitions, Monash University Museum of Art and Curator, Photographer Unknown, artist-collector Patrick Pound and Maggie Finch, Assistant Curator of Photography, National Gallery
of Victoria.

Other People’s Pictures is a documentary about collectors who share an unlikely obsession – snapshots that have been abandoned or lost by their original owners and are now for sale. The film is set at New York City’s Chelsea Flea Market where every weekend, dozens of collectors sift doggedly through piles, boxes and bins of cast-off photos, ready to pay anywhere from a few cents to hundreds of dollars for a single snapshot.

While some collectors look at the snapshots as found art, others search for images that reflect events and themes in their own lives. One collector, Drew, explains that when he was a teenager, his mother joined a cult and got rid of all their family photos. As a result, he recreates family albums for himself with pictures of strangers that he buys at the flea market. Another collector, Dan, is Jewish and lost many family members to the Holocaust. He collects what he calls ‘banality of evil’ snapshots: average, everyday photographs of Nazis. A third collector, Leslie, searches for suggestive photographs of men hugging, playing or sitting on each other’s laps. He admits it’s impossible to know whether these men were gay, but he feels that in some way he is rescuing a little piece of queer history.

Many of the film’s subjects find that collecting ‘other people’s pictures’ helps them confront the darker aspects of human existence – familial trauma, social injustice, historical atrocity. Others simply appreciate the beauty, humour and mystery of these scavenged images. The uninitiated ask: Why buy someone else’s family photographs? In Other People’s Pictures, nine collectors try to answer this question as they hunt for the images that feed their fantasies and quiet the voices in their heads.

* Winner, Finalist – Best Documentary Short, Big Sky Documentary Film Festival, 2005
* Winner, Best Documentary, New Orleans Film Festival, 2004
* Winner, Best Documentary, Coney Island Film Festival, 2004
* Official Selection, Silverdocs International Film Festival, 2004

www.other-peoples-pictures.com

Monash University Museum of Art
Ground Floor, Building 55,
Monash University, Clayton Campus
Wellington Road, Clayton
Monash University VIC 3800
T: 03 9905 4217
E: muma@monash.edu.au
www.monash.edu.au/muma
Tues-Fri 10am-5pm; Sat 2-5pm
Free Entry