INTERACTIVE CD + DVD NOW AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE.
Traces of Lee Miller: Echoes from St Malo has been released (in July of 2007) and copies may be purchased directly from the Lee Miller Archives. See contact details for the archive in the box to the right of the screen.
Traces of Lee Miller: Echoes from St Malo travels
to New Zealand and
Australia.
The interactive CD will be shown (and available for purchase) at the "Lee Miller's War" exhibition in Australia at the Monash Gallery of Art from 07 July, 2007.
It was shown (at an earlier stage) as part of the another "Lee Miller's War" exhibition at the Aukland Museum in early 2007.
About the Project
Echoes from St Malo is an interactive investigation of Lee Miller’s working practices during her time as a freelance war correspondent for Vogue magazine during WWII. It uses rephotography alongside documents from Miller’s personal and professional life to explore key themes, events and objects. As such, Echoes from St Malo makes available a large number of previously unseen visual and written works of artistic, historical and cultural significance produced by this important figure.
On Lee Miller
Lee Miller (1907 - 1977) was a top American model famed for her beauty appearing in Vogue and Vanity Fair before moving behind the camera and becoming known as a fashion and portraitist photographer. In addition to producing her own work as a photographer, she was the surrealist muse of Man Ray, Roland Penrose and Picasso.
With the onset of World War II she became increasingly drawn to photojournalism. As a war correspondent Lee Miller covered the Blitz, the siege of St. Malo and the liberation of Hitler’s concentration camps - not only as a photographer but as a writer also. Her photographs were taken with an unflinching eye and her despatches convey an immediacy with acute observation and a deep personal involvement with a professional detachment - together they are a testimony to the horrors of World War II and have left an indelible mark.
An Unexpected Witness to the Siege
This DVD-ROM focuses upon Lee Miller’s experience of the US army's siege of the town of Saint-Malo, France in 1944. She unexpectedly witnessed five days of the battle and documented those events for Vogue magazine, something no other journalist was present to see. Echoes from Saint-Malo combines visual and textual content to re-create certain incidents as experienced by Miller – an historical episode thus unfolds before an audience who sees it through her eyes.
Rephotography
Also included in the project are a series of rephotographs. These are contemporary, replicated versions of select images which, when blended (by users) with Miller's originals, allow the past to visually seep into and inform the present. In addition to illustrating the ways in which the places and situations have changed, this bleeding-through of the historic moment into present-day provides for unique perspectives on the physical and temporal spaces Lee Miller occupied. They also help to reveal the personal identity of the artist infused within artistic products.
Access to Lee Miller’s Work
This series of DVDs is designed to lead to further contextualization of Lee Miller’s work via the original material produced within each project AND through the increased access it will provide to scholars, artists, students and other interested members of the public. Echoes from St Malo is a groundbreaking project that offers audiences the opportunity to read and experience the work of Lee Miller in ways hitherto impossible.
