7. Chasing Shadows: Sharing Photographs from Former Northwest Manchuria

Based on fieldwork within museums in Cambridge and St. Petersburg, and in Hulunbeir province China, this paper explores the evocative effect photographic images from the first third of twentieth century have on national communities investigating their identities. Set against the background of Northern China, where many records of local rural lifestyles have been lost or destroyed, the digital sharing of the images collected by Ethel Lindgren and Sergei Shirokogoroff have had a strong emotional and political effect with local communities. Through querying the status of the photograph as an object of memory, the author speaks to the engagement of audiences to these unique collections. The chapter is accompanied by 25 photographic images.