The photographic practice of Jo Grant
"We don't feel obligations to the future unless we have this contact with the past, and the contact with the past is not petty histories about who was the Mayor of Footscray, the contact with the past is these great mythic stories ... "
Latrobe University Professor of Sociology, John Carroll made this comment on Radio National's 'Religion Report' in relation to what he describes as the humanist wreck of Western culture-in this specific case, why he believes the Anzac myth is more edifying than ‘petty' social history. Over the past ten years it appears that there has been a growing appeal in the public realm to a sense of history once more about 'the great and the good' and universal myths, rather than the small but significant individual stories celebrated by social historians.
In the visual arts we have the rich traditions of social realism, genre subjects and the still life as alternatives to 'the great myths' of Western culture. To suggest that these traditions offer fewer opportunities to establish forms of 'vertical community' (a connection spanning generations rather than depending on temporal and spatial proximity) seems ludicrous. The rich cross-generational bonding that takes place in the telling and retelling of family and community stories has been well documented.
So while who was the Mayor of Footscray; or who won Miss Capricornia in 1964, may seem petty from the perspective of the ancient classics scholar for instance, for members of that community, these stories can become part of a mythology as compelling and 'connecting' as Homer's epics. For the past two years the photographer, Jo Grant has been documenting the modest details of rural and... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline