It is really rather surprising to learn that in the University of London’s Senate House Library, amidst the Shakespeare and the geography textbooks, there is a vast catalogue of images compiled by a man known as Britain’s most notorious ‘ghost hunter’. Bizarre as this may be, seeing is very much believing as the Photographer’s Gallery has delved into the archives of the ‘Harry Price Library of Magical Literature’ to present an exploration of the relationship between photography and the paranormal which is, in turn, spooky, disturbing and downright comical.
Travelling the country at the turn of the twentieth century, Price recorded with scientific precision all evidence of the other-worldly phenomena that he could find. Mediums spouting ectoplasm, haunted houses and séances are shown alongside images of objects and contraptions utilised by Price’s National Laboratory of Psychical Research.
A still life entitled ‘Ghost Hunting Kit’ includes the tools for sealing doors, steel tape and, rather menacingly, a bottle of mercury, one is left to speculate on their uses. Many seemingly innocuous images are transformed into sinister visions on reading their captions. A very normal looking country cottage, for example, is revealed to be the ‘Home of the Talking Mongoose’, an intriguing creature which looks suspiciously like a squirrel.
Alongside Price’s catalogue of peculiarity is a series of photographs and films produced by seven modern international artists, which provides a thought-provoking counterpoint to the vintage curios. Exploring the way in which the photographic medium can be manipulated to suggest the supernatural, Claire Stroud’s portraits of young girls shrouded by an obscure fog-like ‘aura’ are hauntingly beautiful. More uncanny and surreally chilling are Roger Ballen’s images composed of severed limbs, child-like jottings and stuffed animals set in filthy rooms. Whilst Florencia Durante’s swirling neon light patterns are a striking engagement with the way in which light energy can produce what seems like extraordinary visual phenomena.
Although modern day scepticism divests many of the vintage images of their intended scariness, Seeing is Believing provides a fascinating and curious history lesson on the paranormal.
Seeing is Believing runs at the Photographer’s Gallery, Leicester Square, until 27 January 2007.
