I remember back nearly 20 years and I am walking round the Photographers' Gallery overwhelmed by the brooding images that captured the grandeur, the smell and the sweat, the toil of a nation. And I try to remember what exactly it was that he did - designed the layout, interpretation and catalogue for the exhibition, I think, but do not exactly know.
There are stacks of carefully preserved images from the exhibitions he organised, that must be unwrapped and identified, then dispersed. Nothing is of great value, but everything documents a moment or period in his life in a kind of complex visual diary.
Why do we do this? Why do we keep all these memory prompts? Why do we feel it so important to remember? There is too much to remember, And soon it will be forgotten. So I look around my own house and realise that I am keeping other people's memories, in books, in furniture, letters and pictures. Second hand memories. Do I dare to release them?
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