Every image narrates a tale

Susan Meiselas didn’t embark on a journey to become a photographer. The documentary photographer, filmmaker, and president of the Magnum Foundation was pursuing her master’s degree at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 1971 when she captured her pioneering “44 Irving Street, Cambridge, MA series,” which is currently on display at the Harvard Art Museums.

Renowned for her documentary photography of the late 1970s rebellion in Nicaragua and her portrayals of carnival strippers later in that decade, Meiselas reflected on the Irving Street monochrome prints during a recent gallery discussion and conveyed how they contributed to shaping the career that ensued.

At the outset, she mentioned that her focus was on her studies until a photography course “with a sociological twist” piqued her interest. (The course name has since slipped her memory.) For a class assignment, she opted to photograph the other residents of her Cambridge boarding house.

“The camera became a means to connect,” she noted. “I didn’t know anyone, so I began to knock on doors.”

As she toured the various apartments, she discovered that each location in the old structure “possessed a distinct character.” Observing how the inhabitants customized their rooms, “I became intrigued by their alterations to their space.”

Even more compelling than the personal adaptation of space, Meiselas found, were the interactions with her neighbors, whom she identified solely by their first names. Initially, she would inform them that she was a student, studying photography. “I’d inquire if there was a spot in their room where they would sit for a portrait.” The outcomes varied, with subjects settled into armchairs or sprawled on the floor, some in tidy, brightly lit areas while others were encircled by books and papers. After developing the pictures, she would return with a contact sheet to present to her subjects. “That was the moment where something new occurred for me,” she remarked. Once her subjects had seen the photographs, she would ask them, “What are your thoughts about yourself?”

Those written reflections, accessible via a QR code on the exhibit wall, complete the installation, as stated by Meiselas, who submitted the letters along with the photographs for her class. “They either wrote to me about their self-perception or how the image did or did not represent them.”

During the gallery discussion, she recited portions of those replies aloud. Her past neighbor Gordon, for instance, is depicted slouched in a chair, with books and a television positioned behind him. “I wouldn’t have opted to reside alone. I had no choice,” he expressed, likely to clarify his melancholy demeanor. “That’s just who I am, somewhat detached. I tend to be introspective. I perceive this place as a temporary stopover.”

In additional instances of the QR-accessible text, another neighbor, Carol, replied to her image, which displays her encircled by her books. “I like to believe my face reflects my sentiments during my most inventive improvisation sessions: somewhat unsatisfied with my sluggishness, slightly embarrassed by the progress and quality that are still inadequate.” Another, Barbara, concentrated on her own self-image: “My photograph illustrates me … in my confined space,” she noted regarding the image that depicts her typing at a desk, “gazing out at everyone and everything.”

These letters turned into Meiselas’s focal point. “I didn’t exit the class thinking ‘I’m going to be a photographer,’” she remarked. Instead, “I grew intrigued by the camera as a medium for connection.”

What captivated her, she elaborated, was the manner in which the subjects reacted. The experience also highlighted two themes that have become enduring in her work: “the joy of connection, and the complicated nature of the power of representation.”

Meiselas delved into these themes recently in the publication “Collaboration: A Potential History of Photography,” which she describes as “an endeavor to sincerely examine photography as involving others.” (The book was co-authored with UC Berkeley Professor of African American Studies Leigh Raiford; Yale University Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Laura Wexler; photographer Wendy Ewald; and Brown University Professor of Modern Culture and Media Ariella Aïsha Azoulay.) Such scrutiny is essential, she pointed out, because the dynamic between the subject and the photographer may be troubled, teetering between “what is positive and collaborative, inclusive and participatory, and what could be deemed problematic.”

Following the “Irving Street” initiative, Meiselas pursued her education degree and began teaching. Collaborating with elementary school learners at an experimental institution in the South Bronx, she once more wove photography into her practice. Utilizing straightforward pinhole cameras, her students captured images of their environment and neighbors “and created little books,” she reminisced.

“They employed visuals to narrate tales. It wasn’t about the formal aspects of photography,” she stated. “It was centered on the narrative and the interconnectedness. It was: Take your pinhole camera, go into the street, meet the butcher…” Through these photographs, Meiselas expressed her aspiration to provide her students with “an understanding of photography as an exchange within the world.”

Through all these endeavors, she perceives the thread of relationship-building. Reflecting once more on the “Irving Street” collection, she remarked: “This project has always echoed as the launch of my practice.”