The Anonymous Project

0:00Hello. Hi, my name is Lee Shulman and this is Emmanuel. We are from the anonymous project. We're working good.

0:17So we're currently in the middle of our first exhibition in Paris, which we hope to bring to London this September.

0:24So this is what we're talking about. Let me hold these up. There's one there, if I don't know if you can see, and there's another one. There we go. Positive colour slides. Each one unique. A unique moment in time captured in stunning colour.

0:33So I started the anonymous project just over a year ago. I've always loved coloured slides. And one day I was playing around online and I looked on eBay and I saw a huge lot of coloured slides for sale and so I bought them.

0:51I remember looking at them the first time and being completely blown away by the stunning quality and colours, but also by the amazing scenes and people I discovered in these little windows into our past.

1:00So the project was born and one year and half a million slides later, here we are.

1:07So the anonymous project's goals are to collect, scan, catalogue, curate unique amateur colour photos slides from the last 70 years, with the aim of preserving this collective memory and giving a second life to the people often forgotten in these timeless moments captured in stunning codochrome. So from the 1950s onwards, colour slide photography soon developed into the dominant medium to capture daily life, not just weddings, graduations, friends posing for friends or families gathering for portraits, but all aspects of daily life. These amateur photographs that you can see behind me, to my side, are a chyloscopic diary of that era, all the more fascinating and arresting because of their unpolished quality, often funny, surprising and touching. These images are the stories of all our lives. By preserving this important part of our shared experience, we learn a lot about each other and our differences, but more importantly, to a greater degree, we learn about our shared humanity. Through these images, we learn that our need for love, laughter, intimacy and celebration are what binds us all. In our first year, we concentrated on assembling these images into common themes to illustrate this.

2:20As Lee said, in only one year, we have collected and edited more than half a million slides and we selected and digitalised around 5,000 of them, which are now in the collection. At first, we only bought slides on internet, eBay, but also in flea markets, weeks after weeks, months after months. When we discovered all these treasures, we thought that it would be really amazing if the project become collaborative. If people from around the world would be a part of the anonymous project by sending us their own family colour slides. And because of the amazing press for the project, it has finally happened. For a few months now, people, mostly from the US and UK, began to send us their own colour slide and it is growing every day. Sometimes, it's family slides from grandfather or grand uncles, stocked in the attic, or just personal connection.

3:20But it's always for us a great honour to receive it. Because our mission is to bring back to life these forgotten collective memories. We collect, scan, catalogue and curate these unique colour slides, but to give them meaning, we try to classify all these slides in similar themes. Whether today or in the 60s, when you take out your camera, it's often to immortalise the same moments. Sometimes, these themes are universal as someone with their car or standing proudly in front of their house. They show out the car and the house are still important in our contemporary world.

4:01Even if you're from India or from Hungary, families, friends or students always pose in front of them. Lee and Mia are also very moved by simple themes like by the seaside. Holidays, blue skies, seas, bodies buried in the sand, people smiling, we all have great memories from childhood by the sea. When you look at these colour slides, there is always a moment when you identify with those anonymous people, a strange feeling to know them deeply. In time, all these people have become our own family. Together is also one of our favourite themes. It shows people from everywhere, every age, just together, enjoying times, smiling, hugging, kissing, simple emotions that are always incredibly powerful.

5:02After these universal and more classic themes, we also have more unusual themes. People from all around the world love to take pictures of people during their nap. It's strange.

5:15We have a huge series called Three Dreams showing people sleeping everywhere in cars, boats. We can sleep everywhere. Sofa, floor, grass, sand, beaches, etc. These people, we never know that they have been photographed. We are also different, but we share so much as well.

5:45That's what the anonymous project teaches us every day. So often when we receive the boxes of slides, for the most part, we don't really know who these people are. Hence, anonymous. We might have a name, a date written on the frames or some piece of information, but usually very little. It's a lot of guesswork. But tonight, it's a preview for you guys. We'd like you to introduce you to Elmer J. Crosby. There he is in his box. So a couple of weeks back, we received a parcel with a stock of colour slides with this letter here, which I'm going to hold up, which came inside it. I'd like to read this letter and let you discover the slides we found. We put them together on Friday. If I can just read this letter, we'll just go through a few of the slides. So, dearly, I finally got around to mailing you Elmer's slides. I hope they find you well. I talked to an employee at the local post office about mailing these. You're right about it being expensive. It doesn't matter to me much, though, because I feel like I have to get these to you. More than anything, I think Elmer would have been proud of you guys to have these in order to preserve his legacy. I will try to share with you what I know about him as best I can. Elmer J.

6:56Crosby was from Meridian, Massachusetts. He served in the military during World War II. He fell in love with a woman back home. I assume they became married. I know a little about the majority of his life, but I do know that the woman he loved passed away at some point. Years later, he would marry my eternal grandmother, Evelyn Warren. Evelyn and Elmer loved each other. For many years until Evelyn met Elmer, she was heartbroken over the death of her first husband. When the two met, her life improved significantly. The two of them liked dancing, particularly country-western. Elmer was a short man with a voice that sounded like he smoked cigarettes during his life. When I knew he worked as a local greeter at Walmart, a perfect for job for someone like him who liked talking to people. Upon his death, we went into his house to get it ready to be sold. I noticed that Elmer took very good care of his possessions, often keeping the original packaging and receipts. As you imagine, he accumulated a lot of stuff by the end of his life. One of the things I found and kept were these pictures which had been sitting in our metal building in the backyard until recently. I'm so glad to have stumbled upon you guys. If I hadn't watched the segment on the BBC, none of this would have happened. I look forward to the day when we can see Elmer's pictures again. You guys are welcome to the name the album wherever you want. Might I suggest something simple as Elmer or Elmer J. Crosby?

8:11Before I end up, I just want to say that the anonymous project is a collaborative project, as Emmanuel said, and relies on the incredible generosity of people who have donated slides and who have also helped heartfelt thanks to all our friends from around the world who have scoured flea markets and car boot sales to bring us these treasures.

8:36So we're going to leave you with a little film with a small selection of our favorite friends and family. Thanks a lot. Thank you. I don't want to set the world on fire. I just want to start a flame in your heart. In my heart I have but one desire and that one is you. No other will do. I've lost all ambition for worldly acclaim. I just want to be the one you love and with your admission that you feel the same. I'll have reached the goal I'm dreaming of.

10:08Believe me, I don't want to set the world on fire. I just want to start a flame in your heart. I don't want to set the world on fire. I love you too much. I just want to start a great big flame down in your heart. You see, way down inside of me, darling I have only one desire and that one desire is you and I know nobody else ain't gonna do. I've lost all ambition for worldly acclaim. I just want to be the one you love and with your admission that you feel the same. I'll have reached the goal I'm dreaming of. Believe me, I don't want to set the world on fire. I just want to start a flame in your heart.