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Introduction:Victorian Photographs Andrea Korda and Vanessa Warne Bound between elaborately carved wood covers, an 1870 portrait album assembles cartes-de-visite of women, their individual photographs held in place by cardboard frames outlined in gold-toned ink (fig. 1). Singers, dancers, and actors, the portraits' subjects, now-forgotten celebrities, seem to compete with one another for attention. They perch on faux balustrades or lounge against columns; they pose with fans, baskets, mandolins, and, in one case, a musket. Beneath each photograph, a pencilled note shares the subject's name. Notably, the name of the person who assembled this collection is not known, nor are the names of the photographers featured. What mattered to the album's maker were the creative accomplishments, and perhaps also the exposed ankles, of the photographs' subjects. While our materials and interests differ, our curation of the essays in this forum on Victorian photography connects us to this album's owner. The essays that follow explore a range of issues in the history of nineteenth-century photography, their analysis anchored to a carefully selected photograph (or two), and we, like the portrait-album maker, delight in their assemblage. The album of women performers, part of the Bruce Peel Special Collections at the University of Alberta, is featured in the online exhibition Photographies. Curated by Andrea Korda (one of this forum's editors) Click for larger view View full resolution Fig 1. Portrait album, 1870. Courtesy of Bruce Peel Special Collections, University of Alberta. [End Page 1] and Heather Caverhill (one of the forum's contributors), Photographies brings together individual artifacts that each tell us something unique about the materiality of photographs and the history of photographic practices. The exhibition is organized around four themes, each posed as a question: What is photography? How do photographs shape memory and identity? How do photographs circulate knowledge? How do photographs become works of art? And each item in the exhibition—from a portrait reproduced on a "Wanted!" poster to a nineteenth-century bodybuilding training manual—offers different responses to these questions. The photographs gathered here by our forum's contributors follow a similar logic. Rather than providing coverage of Victorian photography, the selections reflect what scholars in the field are currently addressing in their research. Each image provides unique responses to questions of what constitutes photography, how photographs shape memory and identity, how photographs circulate knowledge, and how photographs become works of art. This forum has gifted us an opportunity to collaborate not only with one another but also with the authors who share their research here. The strength of our contributors' work is especially valued by Vanessa Warne, who makes her final contribution to Victorian Review in the role of forum editor in this issue. Editing the forum has allowed Vanessa to work with and learn from many scholars in our field. They include her editorial teammates, three chief editors of the journal, ten guest forum editors, and sixty-six contributors. She has assembled fond memories of her time with the journal numerous enough to rival the abundance of cartes-de-visite produced by nineteenth-century photographers; she hopes you will enjoy this forum as much as she has enjoyed her work for Victorian Review. To view the album of women performers and to explore the Photographies exhibition, please scan this QR Code: Copyright © 2022 Victorian Studies of Western Canada
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