Home Movie Label Catalog
The Home Movie Label Catalog is an artistic collaboration between Eric William Carroll and Andy DuCett.
The HMLC is a community engaged and publicly accessible index of what families from the late 20th century preserved on home movies. It is both an art and documentary project based on the highly specific and rapidly disappearing metadata of the home movie label. By preserving and showcasing the labels from the public’s home movies, the HMLC aims to highlight and discover communal histories, local narratives, and celebrate an obsolete format of familial storytelling.
While families are preserving the contents of their home movies via transfer services, the labels, box art, and metadata are often discarded, and at an alarming rate. The HMLC believes that these labels are actually quite important and serve as an index to the moments that families sought to preserve. In addition, the specific handwriting and other unique markings help humanize & differentiate the creators of these movies, which often ends up being homogenized in “the cloud”. Through the solicitation, preservation and organization of these labels, the HMLC hopes to create a new context for these cultural fragments.
Special thanks to Kindra Murphy and Benge
In the spring of 2020, the HMLC held their first in person collection event, strategically located behind an abandoned video store in Winona, MN. Residents came out in record numbers, and their submissions are currently working their way through the HMLC’s robust intake system.
