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International
Bulletin October 2002
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Rediscovering
Missionary Photography |
According
to the Oxford English Dictionary (2d ed., 1989),the word
�photography,� derived from the Greek words for light and writing, was
coined by Sir John Herschel in 1839, the year the photographic process
became public. In that same year LMS missionary John Williams
(1796-1839) was martyred on the Island of Erromango in the New Hebrides.
The �modern missionary movement� was just emerging from its fledgling
state, and missionaries were quick to appreciate and utilize photography
as a means of promoting their concerns.
Today,
photographic images�on screen and video, in magazines and newspapers, on
billboards and posters�are ubiquitous, inescapable, and powerful shapers
of our perceptions of both what is and of what should be. The skillful
manipulation of images sways opinion, perpetrates stereotypes, distorts
reality, and peddles everything from products to propaganda.
Echoing
the eccentric but prescient William Blake (1757-1827), we humans are led
to believe a lie when we see with, not through, the eye. Perhaps
consciously, perhaps unwittingly, but above all inevitably, missionary
photographs were used to reveal and conceal, clarify and distort, nuance
and stereotype their subjects.
But
missionary photographers went well beyond tawdry sensationalism. In this
issue�s lead article, Jack Thompson tells how Alice Seely Harris�s
photographic images of mutilated Congolese captured the grisly reality
beneath the carefully orchestrated public-relations fa�ade that, until
then, had masked King Leopold�s brutal economic rape of the Congo.
And
Hans Rollmann�s article demonstrates that Moravian photographs from
Labrador some 130 years ago constituted much more than simply visual proof
of the legitimacy of the Moravians� work and their worthiness of
financial support. They served a profoundly theological purpose as well,
reinforcing the Moravian Church�s self-definition as a mission church,
and reaffirming each congregation, however remote, as part of a wider
unity.
Missionary
photographs have recently become the focus of serious attention by
archivists and librarians. So vast has been the accumulation of
photographic images in mission collections that until recently, those
charged with the systematic classifying, cataloging, storing, and
retrieving of these pictures have been simply overwhelmed. The good
news�related in the articles by Paul Jenkins and by Samantha Johnson and
Rosemary Seton, and illustrated by the announcements of the MUNDUS Gateway
and Internet Mission Photography Archive (IMPA) initiatives�is that
substantial efforts are now underway to ensure that future generations of
mission historians and scholars will be enabled to see our present and our
past more clearly; not only with, but through the eye.
October 2002
Light
on the Dark Continent: The Photography of Alice Seely Harris and the Congo
Atrocities of the Early Twentieth Century
T.
Jack Thompson
The
Beginnings of Moravian Missionary Photography in Labrador
Hans
Rollmann
Much
More Than Illustrations of What We Already Know: Experiences in the
Rediscovery of Mission Photography
Paul
Jenkins
�Fields
of Vision�: Photographs in the Missionary Collections at the School of
Oriental and African Studies, London
Samantha
Johnson and Rosemary Seton
From
Beyond Alpine Snows to Homes of the East�a Journey Through Missionary
Periodicals: The Missionary Periodicals Database Project
Terry
Barringer
My
Pilgrimage in Mission
Lois
McKinney-Douglas
The
Legacy of Mary Slessor
Jeanette Hardage
Index, 2002
In Coming Issues
Understanding
the Roman Catholic Church in China
Jean-Paul
Wiest
Gandhi
and Islam: His Living Christian Legacy in the Muslim World
Paul-Gordon
Chandler
�Blessed Reflex�: Mission as God�s Spiral for
Renewal
Kenneth R. Ross
Keeping
Faith with Culture: A Study of Zoroastrian Converts of the Nineteenth
Century
Farshid Namdaran
Pre-Revolution Russian Mission to Central Asia: A
Contextualized Legacy
David M. Johnstone
What
the Baila Believed About God: A Study in Cultural Clues to Evangelization
Dennis G. Fowler
In our Series on the Legacy of Outstanding Missionary Figures of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, articles about
Norman Anderson
Thomas Barclay
Rowland V. Bingham
George Bowen
H�l�ne de Chappotin
Fran�ois Daubanton
John Duncan
James Gilmour
Hannah Kilham
George Leslie Mackay
Leslie E. Maxwell
Lesslie Newbigin
M. D. Opara
Constance E. Padwick
Peter Parker
Julius Richter
Elizabeth Russell
Johannes Sch�tte, S.V.D.
Bakht Singh
James Stephen
John V. Taylor
James M. Thoburn
M. M. Thomas
William Cameron Townsend
Johannes Verkuyl
William Vories