Other Peoples Photographs Too
By Alfie • Jan 4th, 2009 • Category: ArtThis Saturday our client Strange Cargo launched the new mobile blogging site we built for them, Other Peoples Photographs (Too). As a business, moblog:tech has moved away from licensing it’s moblogging platform, but this project was really just too cool, and our platform was ideal for it. We have been long-time supporters of the creative commons licensing standards, and the client has used CC licensing throughout the site, so this wonderful and deep document of life in Folkestone is a remixable public asset.
The project is described as:
Other People’s Photographs is a groundbreaking public art project by Strange Cargo constructed from photographs of people outside in the streets of a town. 1650 photographs were lent by the public for the project, ranging from 1885 to the present day, documenting how people live their lives in the small coastal town of Folkestone, and its satellite towns of Cheriton and Sandgate, in east Kent. Every one of the 540 streets in the town now has a permanent sign displaying a photograph of its inhabitants going about their business over the last hundred years, and all photographs are accessible on interactive touch screens in the Bouverie Place shopping centre with voice recordings of the stories behind them.
OPP2 aims to add to Other People’s Photographs to create a public record of Folkestone, Cheriton and Sandgate through photographs of people in the streets. We want you to add to the archive, and to comment on the cultural landscape. For this reason, please try and keep your posts relevant to this subject, photos must have people in them, outside in recognisable streets of the town. Please avoid posting images of empty views or people indoors.”
This idea is just so wonderful, and fulfills all those snappy buzz words that those who work in the public sector use so often and with so little understanding. I can really see this idea being something that would work all over the world, it’s such a poignant and interesting way to capture the soul of a place.
Do have a look at the site, the photographs are just wonderful, spanning decades of life in Folkestone, and the integration of these images with a map of folkestone make it even more fun. Folkestone is a wonderful walking town too, if you fancy a weekend break you could do a lot worse, and you could also then add your experiences of Folkestone into this ongoing document.
Alfie is a web and mobile troublemaker.
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