One of the most amazing photo projects in the Town of recent years has been Through Our Eyes, sponsored by Christ Church Charlestown, and embraced by the community before the pandemic, but especially last year as the project captured a unique moment in history regarding how people lived through 2020.
This year, though, Christ Church Pastor JD Mangrum, who has helped coordinate the project for the past few years, said they want to try something a little new. They are now reaching out to the community to get volunteers.
“We are making a fun change this year,” he said. “Rather than hand out cameras or hand out a list of themes, we are doing the project in three phases over three months.”
The project’s phases will be as follows:
•June – Collecting old photos of people on Charlestown in Charlestown from the past 100ish years (where they will photograph them and select the top photos for phase 2).
•September – Getting people to recreate the photos today in the best, most creative, most accurate ways possible.
•October – Exhibit the work publicly to the community.
Mangrum said they will begin collecting the photos on the Battle of Bunker Hill week, collecting at the Charlestown Farmers Market and at pre-determined, announced locations around the community.
“We need people to open up their old photo albums and shoeboxes, sift through their photos, and bring some of their favorites,” he said. “We will photograph the photos and get some brief info on the image and contact info on the one who brings it. The goal of this year’s project is to celebrate our Charlestown history through images of what life was once like in the Town and then recapture those images in 2021, celebrating what Charlestown is becoming.”
Right now, Mangrum said they simply want to get the word out so people can be thinking about their old Charlestown photos. That way, he said, they will get a large array of old photos that they can recreate later in the summer.
To find out more about the project, reach out to [email protected].