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Essay

Open Access

The Garbage Bag Archive: Disposal and Disposability in Family Photo Collections

Madison Brown

Published online:

06 Oct 2025

Abstract

Abstract

This article examines everyday acts of disposal in the family photo archive as a mode of curation that I call “memorial housekeeping.” Situating everyday practices of curating family photo collections as an undervalued area of feminized labor, I analyze my mother's decision to throw out “bad“ family photos, as well as the photographs that I found stuffed in a garbage bag. Highlighting the unique vulnerability of family photos and the memories they index, I argue that such acts of disposal disrupt the intergenerational transmission of familial memory, “cleaning up” what gets remembered in the process. It is only by looking closely at what we don't want to see that we can understand the structuring role of disposal in family photo collections.

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