Haunted air / compiled by Ossian Brown.

Contributor(s):

Brown, Ossian

Material type: Text

TextPublication details: London : Jonathan Cape, 2010.Description: 1 vol., unpaged : ill, ; 23 cmISBN:

9780224089708 (hbk.)
0224089706 (hbk.)

Subject(s):

DDC classification:

779.93 BRO

Holdings
Item type	Current library	Call number	Copy number	Status	Date due	Barcode
Standard Loan	LSAD Library Main Collection	779.93 BRO (Browse shelf(Opens below))	1	Available		39002100437079

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

A collection of anonymous Hallowe'en Photographs from America, c.1875 - 1955

The roots of Halloween lie in the ancient pre-Christian Celtic festival of Samhain, a feast to mark the death of the old year and the birth of the new. It was believed that on this night the veil separating the worlds of the living and the dead grew thin and ruptured, allowing spirits to pass through and walk unseen but not unheard amongst men. The advent of Christianity saw the pagan festival subsumed in All Souls' Day, when across Europe the dead were mourned and venerated. Children and the poor, often masked or in outlandish costume, wandered the night begging 'soul cakes' in exchange for prayers, and fires burned to keep malevolent phantoms at bay.From Europe, the haunted tradition would quickly take root and flourish in the fertile soil of the New World. Feeding hungrily on fresh lore, consuming half-remembered tales of its own shadowy origins and rituals, Hallowee'en was reborn in America. The pumpkin supplanted the carved turnip; costumes grew ever stranger, and celebrants both rural and urban seized gleefully on the festival's intoxicating, lawless spirit. For one wild night, the dead stared into the faces of the living and theliving, ghoulishly masked and clad in tattered backwoods baroque, stared back.The photographs in Haunted Air provide an extraordinary glimpse into the traditions of this macabre festival from ages past, and form an important document of photographic history. These are the pictures of the dead- family portraits, mementoes of the treasured, now unrecognisable, other. Torn from album pages, sold piecemeal for pennies and scattered, abandoned to melancholy chance and the hands of strangers.

Excerpt provided by Syndetics

ONE DAY A MESSAGE CAME. THE MESSAGE WAS FROM MY FRIEND, PIERRE. PIERRE TOLD ME HE HAD SOME PHOTOGRAPHS HE WANTED TO SHOW ME. HE SAID HE THOUGHT I WOULD LIKE THE PICTURES. IN FACT, HE SAID HE THOUGHT I WOULD LIKE THEM VERY VERY MUCH. A FEW DAYS LATER PIERRE CAME FOR A VISIT AND A CAPPUCCINO. HE HAD THE PHOTOGRAPHS WITH HIM INSIDE A FOLDER. HE HELD THE FOLDER CLOSED IN HIS LEFT HAND. SOON THE CAPPUCCINOS ARRIVED AND WE BEGAN TO DRINK THEM. WE EACH LIT A CIGARETTE AND THROUGH THE SMOKE PIERRE SMILED AND OPENED THE FOLDER. I FELT HIM WATCHING MY EXPRESSION AS MY EYES FELL ON EACH OF THE PHOTOGRAPHS. I SAW THEM COMPLETELY. I WAS SOMEWHERE ELSE. I THOUGHT I WAS SOMEPLACE BUT NOW I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT PLACE. I SEEMED TO BE INSIDE FOREIGN WORLDS WHERE THERE WAS SOME KIND OF TROUBLING CAMARADERIE - AS IF A HAUNTING JOKE WAS KNOWN TO EVERYONE BUT ME AND YET FAINTLY I KNEW IT TOO. I COULDN'T PULL AWAY - IT WAS ALL LIKE A MAGNET AND THERE WAS BEAUTY IN IT. HUMAN CREATURES WITH THE FEELING OF BEING TURNED STRANGE AND OPEN TO FALLING.AND GLEE - THEY SEEMED TO HAVE A GLEE FOR SOMEHOW STITCHING A LAUGH TO DARKNESS. ALL THE CLOCKS HAD STOPPED. A VOID OUT OF TIME. AND HERE THEY ARE - LOOKING OUT AND HOLDING THEMSELVES STILL - HOLDING STILL AT THAT POINT WHERE TWO WORLDS JOIN - THE FAMILIAR - AND THE OTHER. THESE ARE THE PHOTOGRAPHS PIERRE SHOWED ME. THEY ARE FROM THE GREAT COLLECTION OF OSSIAN BROWN. PIERRE WAS RIGHT - I LIKE THESE PHOTOGRAPHS VERY VERY MUCH. DAVID LYNCH Excerpted from Haunted Air by Ossian Brown All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Ossian Brown , artist, musician and composer, lives on the south coast of England where he cares for abandoned cats and goats. He was a member of the music group Coil, and is a co-founding member of Cyclobe.