eBay Archives (ongoing)
An archival project started in the first Covid-19 Lockdown of 2020 and continued since, eBay Archives consists of found photographic images from boxes of strangers’ 35mm colour film slides bought on eBay. The photos are from all over the world, date from the 1950s - 1990s, and the original photographers all remain unknown. How the slides end up on eBay and in the artist’s hands is mostly a mystery, although it is suspected that most are resold from estate sales and flea markets. The images come with no backstory or origin information from the sellers - although some have dates, locations, or the names of subjects scribbled on the physical slide by their original owners. The images can be used to study a range of concepts surrounding photography and the camera as a cultural object, such as ownership of the image, the intersection between public and private, the accessibility of photography through time and the crisis of representation.
(I’d personally love to see one of these images as album art or something similar, so please get in touch if you’re intereseted in using them for a creative project and we can discuss!)
Highlights of the collection can be found on instagram at @ebayarchives
Click images to view / enlarge
