I Dreamed I Had a Girl in My Pocket - Softcover

Ewald, Wendy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0393314278 ISBN 13: 9780393314274

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 1996

Synopsis

A remarkable book of photographs accompanied by moving and often disturbing testimonies by the children about their lives within the caste system, their families, fears, futures, and dreams.

This unique book of photographs and text takes place in the 2000-year-old village of Vichya in the desert of Gujarati, India. There, photographer and teacher Wendy Ewald lived and taught twenty of the village's children, ages ten to fourteen years, the art and craft of photography.

Whether they attend school or work the fields, whether they are untouchables or of another caste, the children speak chillingly of their concern over their impending marriages and stories of bride-burning, of their hopes and dreams, and of their almost unanimous desire to photograph the gods.

The children's pictures and oral histories are joined with Ewald's evocative observations and images of the town and its people. 60 duotone photographs

About this title

About the Author

Wendy Ewald is a photographer who has collaborated on art projects with children, families, women, and teachers for fifty years.

From the Back Cover

In the 2,000-year-old village of Vichya, in the state of Gujarat in northwestern India, Wendy Ewald photographed and taught twenty of the village's children. I Dreamed I Had a Girl in my Pocket is a record of her journey, a unique book in which words and images move on simultaneous planes. Ewald worked with the children to portray their families, friends, daily lives, and the sometimes secret stories of love, struggle, death, and bride-burning whispered by adults. The children's images are joined with Ewald's in an evocative narrative. Whether they attend school or work the fields, whether they are untouchables or of another caste, these rural children speak in eloquent voices and offer intimate glimpses of their lives. This small epic of an Indian village includes artifacts, and artworks, along with stories told by the children and other villagers, collected by Ewald. These stories, along with Ewald's portraits of the children, bear witness to a culture's first encounter with a camera.

Reviews

Ewald, a contributing photographer to the publication DoubleTake, issued quarterly by the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, has also received NEA, Fulbright, and MacArthur fellowships for her studies of children and culture in Appalachia and Colombia. Continuing this work, Ewald traveled to India in 1989 to explore the teaching of photography to a group of children in the small village of Vichya in northwestern India. The results of her seven-month stay are depicted here in three main sections: portraits of each of her 20 students taken by Ewald and accompanied by their personal statements; the author's photographs of the area; and, finally, the images made by the children themselves. As a photoessay, this is neither as strong nor as evocative as another project, Black Self/White Self, that Ewald began in 1989, photographs from which were published in the Summer 1996 issue of DoubleTake. (Fifth- and sixth-graders from North Carolina were given the task of portraying themselves as a different race through manipulation of a photographic self-portrait.) However, this work is still a fascinating ethnographic study that is appropriate for social and cultural issues areas but recommended only for comprehensive photographic collections.?Kathy J. Anderson, Indiana Univ., Bloomington
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0393314278
• ISBN 13: 9780393314274
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 104