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The Reversed Perspective
Among some other projects, Rein Jelle Terpstra will share his ongoing work about the Robert F. Kennedy Funeral Train, and reflect on loss, collective memory and the role of photography in society.
On June 8, 1968, the casket of assassinated presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy was transported on a funeral train from New York City to Washington D.C. About a million people lined the train tracks to pay their final respects. Photographer Paul Fusco documented this journey from aboard the train, photographing the many bewildered mourners. The RFK funeral train itself, intended to imprint a collective memory in the minds of the Americans, was almost invisible in this compelling photo series of mourners. That led Terpstra to the question what did they see and how were they looking? The only way to find out was to reverse Fusco’s perspective and see through the people’s cameras. Through social media, traveling along the same railroad and hanging around train stations he got in touch with people who stood along the tracks and took photographs that day.
Until now, this project led to an archive of vernacular photographs, home movies and fragments of interviews.
His work has been shown at the SFMOMA (San Francisco), ICP (NYC), Les Rencontres d’Arles (France), the Nederlands Fotomuseum (Rotterdam), and the Hamburger Kunsthalle.