ABSTRACT

In a world of colour, monochrome images break through the monotony of visual saturation, creating a sense of nostalgia in the present. As an aesthetic rooted in the past, black and white photography when applied to the present lends an authority to images by visually coding them as archival. Drawing on photographs taken by young people as part of a broader research project, this short article will explore the tendency of monochrome to elicit geographies of memory by charging them with productive nostalgia. The study, called Engaging Youth in Regional Australia and partly undertaken in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, sought to better understand the connections that regional Australian youth have with their hometowns, and, in turn, how this relates to their decisions to stay, leave, or return to a regional area. Although not explicitly asked to do so, some of these young people responded to the use of black and white film by connecting place to childhood memory. This short article considers the implications of this tendency for art as research in human geography.

摘要

在色彩的世界中，单色图像突破了视觉饱和的单调，营造出当下的怀旧感。作为一种植根于过去的美学，黑白摄影在应用于现在时通过将图像编码为档案在视觉上赋予图像权威。作为更广泛研究项目的一部分，这篇短文将借鉴年轻人拍摄的照片，探讨单色通过激发富有成效的怀旧情绪来引发记忆地理的趋势。这项名为Engaging Youth in Regional Australia 的研究部分是在 2020 年 COVID-19 大流行期间进行的，旨在更好地了解澳大利亚偏远地区青年与家乡的联系，进而了解这与他们留下、离开或返回偏远地区的决定有何关系。尽管没有明确要求这样做，但其中一些年轻人通过将地点与童年记忆联系起来来回应黑白胶片的使用。这篇简短的文章考虑了这种趋势对艺术作为人文地理学研究的影响。