Prolonging the Afterimage: Looking at and Talking about Photographs of Black Montreal

This thesis takes as its focus Black Montreal’s history of image-making and image preservation. Engaging primarily with snapshot and vernacular images taken between the 1940s-1980s, this research charts how photography has functioned as an integral force in the formation and production of selfhood, community, and a sense of belonging as well as a practice of resistance and of affirming visibility for Black Montrealers. Guided by the question of whether photography and oral history could be used in tandem to come into encounter with the minor histories and everyday stories of Montreal’s Black communities, this thesis comprised of conducting oral history photo-interviews with Black Montrealers and studying several personal collections, Black community-oriented and institutional photographic archives. The interdisciplinary approach of blending of visual culture and oral history speaks directly to the interwovenness and inseparability of photography and orality which is made most evident through the photographs that are included within this research. Moreover, the process of looking, touching, and talking about served to further contextualize the photographs within personal and archival collections, share information regarding practices of vernacular image-making and preservation in black communities in Montreal, as well as highlight the dynamic relationship that exists between memory, photography, orality, and affect