Angela Silva was born in Iloilo, Philippines, in 1955. She is a mixed-media artist and printmaker based in Talisay, Negros Occidental. Before moving to the Philippines, she taught workshops in the San Francisco Bay Area on image transfers, portrait collage and artists books.
This exhibition presents my curated collection of found photographs that were taken by amateur photographers or photo studios between the 1900's to the 1940's.
I want you to come closer, look longer, find something.
Be curious:
Who were these people?
Where were these taken?
What were they doing?
They stand in front of you, eyes looking at the camera, at you looking back. How did the photograph survive this long? The original intention of the photograph is gone. The new intention is for you to see them for the first time in a new light. The small sizes of the photographs were based on the type of camera films most common at that time. Some are real photo postcards (RPPC) that were taken in a photography studio for personal remembrance.
Many others were personal snapshots, collected from albums that were taken apart. I included dedications written on the back wherever I could. The indigo blue backgrounds are cyanotype prints, a form of early photography before cameras and film. I appropriated magazine articles and handwritten endearments from other found photos. I created collages based on themes and narratives that I chose to give these snapshots a new aesthetic meaning.
Maybe you can provide a story.
Angela Silva, 2025