Then and Now.
Then and Now.
One can spend hours playing string game. It’s fun. You come up with some tricks, but your friends will come up with even more tricks.
String game is an old training game.
Kids play so that their fingers do not get entangled in the harpoon lines, when the time comes to hunt walrus and bearded seal.
In the summer of 1971, Magssanguaq Imina, a boy of twelve, sojourned at a hunting camp in Inglefield Bay. Under the tutelage of his grandmother, Sofie, he embarked on a journey into the world of string puzzles, one known as the Tent.
Bryan Alexander, a young fashion photographer hailing from London in those distant days, immortalized a photograph of young Magssanguaq.
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Forty-eight years adrift in the river of time, Bryan returned to the Thule District to capture Magssanguaq's essence once more. He found him in Qaanaaq, at home, his deft hands crafting the Tent once more.
The abyss of half a century beckons the question—what transpired in the void between? Magssanguak, post-schooling, donned the mantle of employment at Nukissiorfit, the power plant in Qaanaaq. Recognition followed in the form of a medal, celebrating his four decades of service to the company. But beyond hunting and nurturing his family, what filled his hours? He was a fireman, a volunteer fireman for the community.
Over the past seven years, Bryan Alexander reconnected with those he had photographed as children half a century ago. His new tome, "Then and Now," is a tale spun from the threads of the "in-between," that ever-elusive span between the "past perfect" and "present continuous." It's an inhale, an exhale, and the chasm that yawns between the two, a void that renders seemingly disparate images a marvel of unity.
I've spent my holidays lost in the pages of Bryan's book—a hallucinatory journey. It's akin to a string game of its own kind. Two portraits, two snapshots, ostensibly unrelated at first glance, yet in the blink of an eye, the strings unravel, and suddenly, illumination bathes everything.
For those keen to lay their hands on Bryan's book, reach out to the author, who, coincidentally, is a cherished friend of ours. A link with all the necessary details awaits: