[KS] Terry Bennett's Photo Collection

Tanter, Dr. Marcy TANTER at tarleton.edu
Wed Jul 15 09:02:59 EDT 2020


Assuming that someone would want to buy the collection for an undisclosed amount (if an amount was mentioned, I missed it) is imposing an outsider's viewpoint, in my opinion. While I am someone who thrives on archives and is grateful for every manuscript and scrap I've been able to access, I feel keenly aware that most of what the world has produced has disappeared and I'll never know about it.

With digital archives now, we can scan and preserve images of almost anything and, hopefully, we won't lose as much for future generations. The answer here might be to have volunteers scan the photos and host them online somewhere or donate them. There may not be money to be made, which is a shame, but sometimes that's what happens.  It's not unusual for someone's papers to be donated to a university or museum, as you all know well.  I don't know Korean tax law, but if the photos are donated, is there a tax deduction for the donor?  If donation is also not possible, then online hosting might be the way to go and the photos go to Bennett's heirs in time.

Professor Marcy L Tanter
Fulbright Scholar
Faculty Leader, South Korea Study Abroad
Chair, Speaker Symposium Committee
Department of English and Languages
Box T0300
Tarleton State University
Stephenville, TX 76402

254-968-9282
________________________________
From: Koreanstudies <koreanstudies-bounces at koreanstudies.com> on behalf of Kevin Smith <kevsmith at ucdavis.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, July 15, 2020 2:14 AM
To: koreanstudies at koreanstudies.com <koreanstudies at koreanstudies.com>
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: [KS] Terry Bennett's Photo Collection


Dear Colleagues,

To approach this issue from a somewhat different perspective, one might first consider Thy Phu<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__quod.lib.umich.edu_t_tap_7977573.0010.217-3Fview-3Dtext-3Brgn-3Dmain&d=DwMFaQ&c=eQdEe9K32izieWD3NkQJir9gQaVsVoIVcl3Cm413M7A&r=HCEY4gQ6vhCOxPUzou55OZDoMJ7ck2cbwzpCCMam4PE&m=NaFtjdHRl2zKZvyB2oPMxn5cJvu5AOzrXR2qaQDxOCg&s=o6f83ML-lmIzLuZWTlMkVmvSjmawABOZzLhxeKwPIsE&e=>’s excellent review of Bennett’s recent text, Early Photography in Vietnam. Her takeaway point, which is equally relevant to Bennett’s work on Korea, is in identifying “the book’s primary limitation: namely, its acknowledgment of colonialism as a context in which photography in Vietnam develops only to foreclose consideration of the impact of this context” (par. 9).

Bennett’s book, Korea: Caught in Time, with a title hearkening back to anthropologist Johannes Fabian’s notion of “allochrony” – denying purportedly pre-modern societies contemporaneous and comparable standing with the “West” – similarly fails to avoid the problematics outlined by Phu. Tracing not the complex origins and trajectories of photography in Korea but rather compiling mostly staged shots by foreigners with Orientalist sensibilities such as Felice Beato and Isabella Bird Bishop, it is little wonder the former text corroborates rather than critically interrogates the colonial archive and its construction of an exotic, timeless Korea. (I say this with due recognition of the scholarly significance of these documents in their own right.)

These questions must be taken into account when discussing the fate of Bennett’s undoubtedly impressive collection today. Here Cho Duck-hyun's various archival projects, such as his Dialogue (대화, 1999-2000) series, come to mind as an instructive, countervailing precedent. We might also wish to contrast Bennett’s approach with that of photography scholar Yi Kyeong-min, for example, to better appreciate the alternative methods and objectives available when reconstructing Korea's visible past.

It is also surprising that no one has mentioned The Museum of Photography, Seoul (MoPS). It houses a substantial volume of historical as well as contemporary photographs and publishes a series entitled Camera Work, which together offer one productive instance of the local preservation of Korea’s material artifacts (although this nevertheless begs the question of who has the means to do so, and how they were obtained).

Kevin Michael Smith
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