There are photographs that remind you of other photographs that remind you that you remember what you see, even when you forget.

In 1946, the celebrated American photojournalist W. Eugene Smith was recovering from injuries he had sustained during World War II at his home, when he photographed his two young children walking in his garden. The photograph, titled, The Walk to Paradise Garden, was the closing image of the Family of Man exhibition in 1955.

In a scathing yet profound review of The Family of Man exhibition in Paris titled The Great Family of Man, the philosopher Roland Barthes reflects, ‘everything here, the content and appeal of the pictures, the discourse which justifies them, aims to suppress the determining weight of History: we are held back at the surface of an identity, prevented precisely by sentimentality from penetrating into this ulterior zone of human behaviour where historical alienation introduces some 'differences' which we shall here quite simply call 'injustices'.’

We know that T.S. Satyan did see The Family of Man exhibition, when it came to Chennai (Madras) in 1957 (from the 10 -17th of July), and was deeply shaped by its message as well as its aesthetic. I turn Barthes’s critique over in my mind, and ask, why would a photographer be so inspired by a message of universality, when working with a medium of such specificity?

The pigtailed girl on the right wears a bag that has the word ‘fighter’ printed on it. She has only one anklet, and refuses to be a symbol.

There are photographs which remind you of other photographs, which remind you of other photographs, which reminds you of a photograph that you have seen somewhere. And then you find yourself walking one afternoon, when you see two children arm in arm and suddenly your hands reach for your camera (your phone), to point it at them, to see the photograph again.

The Family Of Man

In January of 1955, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York opened its doors to its most well-known photography exhibition of all time. Titled the Family of Man, the show featured 503 photographs from 68 countries, with an overwhelmingly humanist message – that despite our differences across geography, race, class and gender, we are, as people, the same everywhere. We all experience love and joy, pain and suffering, and photography, that universal language understood by all, expresses our shared humanity like no other medium can. Across a seven-year period, the exhibition travelled from the MoMA to 61 countries and was seen by over 9 million people around the world.

W. Eugene Smith, The Walk to Paradise Garden, USA, 1946

I try to accept the argument of The Family of Man, that the human experience is ultimately universal, and that we can recognise in each other what we know about ourselves. Yes, fine, children holding each other (walking away, into the future, or a green nothingness) is universally understood as a poignant moment. I try to see the message and to buy the argument, but I am so distracted by the fact that these two young schoolgirls are walking barefoot, that their feet look so clean despite walking on the grassy ground, and that the girl on the right is only wearing one anklet (what happened to the other one?).

What was the message I was supposed to get?