Photos and Phantasms is a photographic exhibition now at the National Gallery of Jamaica, featuring the work of Harry Johnston, a geographer, anthropologist, artist and colonial official who traveled through the Caribbean in 1908-9. Organised by the British Council in collaboration with the Royal Geographical Society where Johnston's archive is located, the photographs were selected and researched by Dr. Petrine Archer-Straw. Portraits of black people in urban and rural settings are a strong theme in the show, demonstrating Johnston's concern to illustrate his book called Negro in the New World. Johnston used these photographs to prove that diaspora blacks were establishing homes and progressing in the Caribbean. The exhibition also shows stunning landscapes and genre scenes that give the viewer a vivid impression of life in the Caribbean at the turn of the century. Bustling market places, quiet country roads, workers in fields, traders ferrying their produce to and from the towns, all help to establish a clear historical picture of the region. Although photographic archives already exist in the Caribbean, Johnston's images bring a fresh perspective to how the people are depicted. The exhibition will remain at the National Gallery of Jamaica until May, then it tours Trinidad, Barbados, Cuba and Haiti, some of the islands Johnston visited. Each venue is to recieve a complete set of photographs donated by the British Council in association with the Royal Geographical Society as part of their efforts to repatriate photographs to countries where they were taken originally.

Inset:A Haitian Peasant, 1909 ©RGS

Dr. Petrine Archer-Straw

April 1998

Grosvenor Galleries
1 Grosvenor Terrace, Kgn 8,924-6684

Harmony Hall
P.O. Box 192, Ocho Rios, Jamaica
Tel: (876) 975-4222, Fax (876) 974-2651
harmony@cwjamaica.com