Overview

The curious history of Winnipeg’s “ghost” photographsIn the wake of the First World War and the 1918–19 pandemic, the world was left grappling with a profound sense of loss. It was against this backdrop that a Winnipeg couple, physician T.G. Hamilton and nurse Lillian Hamilton, began their research, documenting and photographing séances they held in their home laboratory. Their decades-long study of the survival of human consciousness after death resulted in a stunning collection of photographs, including images of tables flying through the air, mediums in trances, and, most curious of all, ectoplasm—a strange, gauzy substance through which ghosts could apparently manifest. The Hamiltons’ work and photographic evidence attracted international attention in their day, with notable figures like Arthur Conan Doyle participating in the Hamilton family’s séances. Their investigations also had the support of the psychical scientific community, whose membership included renowned physicist Oliver Lodge, the inventor of wireless telegraphy. In the century since their creation, the images (now housed in the University of Manitoba Archives) have continued to perplex and inspire, with ectoplasm appearing as the subject of academic study, comedic parody, and artistic and cinematic renderings. This fascinating collection reflects on the history and legacy of the startling and otherworldly images found in the Hamilton Family archives. As contemporary society continues to feel the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, The Art of Ectoplasm offers a compelling look at a chapter in social history not entirely unlike our own.

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9781772840377

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Reviews

"""[These] issues are literally life and death, with art and ideas that explore the strange liminal spaces between the material and immaterial [and] call up the ghosts that haunt us now.""--Alison Gillmor ""Border Crossings"" ""This collection offers fascinating photos from [the Hamilton Family Fonds] as well as a range of essays about the meetings, notes and images from the encounters and ruminations on the ways in which the work continues to capture the imagination today.""--Ben Sigurdson ""Winnipeg Free Press"" ""Whether Hamilton's work is evidence of ghosts, documents intangible phenomena, or illuminates a society grappling with loss, is ultimately up to the reader to determine. But one thing is clear: a century later, these photos still have the power to fascinate.""--David Jón Fuller ""Prairie Books NOW"" ""With a collection as rich as the Hamilton Family Fonds, the question becomes what kind of impact did these images have on the world over the last 100 years? This question is explored in the new book The Art of Ectoplasm: Encounters with Winnipeg's Ghost Photographs [which] examines and contextualizes the influence and impact Hamilton's ectoplasmic images have had and continue to have on the world."" --Kitty Wong ""Winnipeg Free Press"""

"""Published on large-format paper, the book itself is a work of art... For anyone interested in the Hamilton s�ances from an artistic, historical or psychical research perspective, it is worth going beyond the amazing photos and reading the text.""--Janice Hamilton ""Writing Up the Ancestors"" ""[These] issues are literally life and death, with art and ideas that explore the strange liminal spaces between the material and immaterial [and] call up the ghosts that haunt us now.""--Alison Gillmor ""Border Crossings"" ""This collection offers fascinating photos from [the Hamilton Family Fonds] as well as a range of essays about the meetings, notes and images from the encounters and ruminations on the ways in which the work continues to capture the imagination today.""--Ben Sigurdson ""Winnipeg Free Press"" ""Whether Hamilton's work is evidence of ghosts, documents intangible phenomena, or illuminates a society grappling with loss, is ultimately up to the reader to determine. But one thing is clear: a century later, these photos still have the power to fascinate.""--David J�n Fuller ""Prairie Books NOW"" ""Serena Keshavjee weaves both scientific and artistic theory into a remarkable visual history, situating the Hamilton photographs within Modernist art and taking us from James Tissot and Auguste Rodin to Guy Maddin and current artists such as Teresa Burrows and Erika DeFreitas, whose work has been inspired in part by the Hamilton photographs. These varied and fascinating discussions take as their starting point a single archival fonds."" --Cheryl Avery ""Archivaria"" ""The Art of Ectoplasm [is] an elaborate and startling new book of essays, pictures, and art inspired by the Hamiltons' collection of seance photographs and by contemporary art."" --Tom Jokinen ""Literary Review of Canada"" ""With a collection as rich as the Hamilton Family Fonds, the question becomes what kind of impact did these images have on the world over the last 100 years? This question is explored in the new book The Art of Ectoplasm: Encounters with Winnipeg's Ghost Photographs [which] examines and contextualizes the influence and impact Hamilton's ectoplasmic images have had and continue to have on the world."" --Kitty Wong ""Winnipeg Free Press"""

"""[These] issues are literally life and death, with art and ideas that explore the strange liminal spaces between the material and immaterial [and] call up the ghosts that haunt us now.""--Alison Gillmor ""Border Crossings"" ""This collection offers fascinating photos from [the Hamilton Family Fonds] as well as a range of essays about the meetings, notes and images from the encounters and ruminations on the ways in which the work continues to capture the imagination today.""--Ben Sigurdson ""Winnipeg Free Press"" ""Whether Hamilton's work is evidence of ghosts, documents intangible phenomena, or illuminates a society grappling with loss, is ultimately up to the reader to determine. But one thing is clear: a century later, these photos still have the power to fascinate.""--David J�n Fuller ""Prairie Books NOW"" ""With a collection as rich as the Hamilton Family Fonds, the question becomes what kind of impact did these images have on the world over the last 100 years? This question is explored in the new book The Art of Ectoplasm: Encounters with Winnipeg's Ghost Photographs [which] examines and contextualizes the influence and impact Hamilton's ectoplasmic images have had and continue to have on the world."" --Kitty Wong ""Winnipeg Free Press"""

Author Information

Serena Keshavjee grew up in Kenya and Toronto and now lives in Winnipeg, where she teaches modern art and architecture at the University of Winnipeg. Her academic research focuses on the intersection of art and science in the 19th and 20th centuries.

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