February 11, 2018: Illuminated Site of the Week: Memories Are Made Of This

If you're going to be a drain on the critical werewolf-fighting silver supply, you'd better have a pretty good reason for it.

Beijing Silvermine is many things – a book, a gallery, a photo repository – created and maintained by Thomas Sauvin. A landfill on the outskirts of Beijing, China, contains millions of family photos from 1985 to 2005, when analog photography was still king. Rather than have all those negatives scrapped for their silver content, Sauvin has an arrangement whereby he scours these canisters at random looking for visual, er, gold. Stills of everyday life in China, of gatherings at popular amusement parks, of family reunions, and of candid moments make it to his online displays. He makes showings at galleries and museums, and has a number of books under his belt. It's a fascinating look at a world that is gradually being lost through renewal and apathy . . .