https://adamkingston.annohost.netFolio and journal documenting photographic projects, research, and process, with critical perspectives on contemporary visual culture.en_GB60http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rssAdam Kingstonhttp://adamkingston.annohost.net/text/one-year-on-ilkley-moorBeginning in 2024, the Moors for the Future Partnership, in conjunction with Bradford Council, Rebel Restoration and Friends of Ilkley Moor (FoIM), has undertaken restoration work on Ilkley Moor to restore peatland and improve flood and wildfire resilience. This work has involved the installation of hundreds of stone, timber, coir and heather dams to stem the flow of water from the moorland. The p…Mon, 23 Feb 2026 12:00:00 +0000http://adamkingston.annohost.net/text/scans-of-epson-reflective-document-matsOver a couple days last summer I made high-resolution scans of 30 reflective document mats attached to the A3 and A4 Epson scanner lids at Leeds Arts University. I believe this accounts for almost all of the scanners at LAU that had mats installed on their lids, across the Mac Suites and various studios throughout the building. On the few occasions a scanner was inoperable, I removed the mat and i…Sat, 07 Feb 2026 13:27:04 +0000http://adamkingston.annohost.net/text/the-political-and-communal-tensions-behind-jewish-heritage-preservation-in-polandThere's a misconception among those with only a casual interest in Jewish heritage in Poland: that when a property is restored to a Jewish community through the Union of Jewish Religious Communities in Poland, its preservation is thereby assured and it will be developed in a manner befitting its historical and cultural significance. Such views ignore the stark economic realities and tensions inher…Mon, 12 Jan 2026 10:39:23 +0000http://adamkingston.annohost.net/text/claraI learned today that my great-grandmother Else's elderly mother, Clara Hirschel (née Goldstein), was interned alongside her daughter and son-in-law at the transit camp I visited in Rybna (formerly Reibnig). Clara was a member of the prominent Goldstein family, several of whom moved from Kattowitz to Breslau in the mid-19th century. I'd previously found her husband's name on the Goldstein family to…Sat, 10 Jan 2026 11:35:57 +0000http://adamkingston.annohost.net/text/embezzled-by-a-notorious-nazi-war-criminalMy paternal great-great-grandfather was Max Kornicker, born 11 May 1853 in Posen (now Poznań), in what was then the Kingdom of Prussia. He had several siblings, one of whom was Louis, born 12 September 1855. Louis married Jenny Moos in Berlin in 1888, moved to his new bride's hometown of Erfurt, Thuringia, and founded a factory in the city manufacturing woollen goods. He died in 1919 and it's pres…Mon, 01 Dec 2025 21:09:24 +0000http://adamkingston.annohost.net/text/the-transit-camp-for-jews-at-riebnig-part-iiRybna (formally Riebnig) is a small settlement located along the Oder river in Opole Voivodeship, home to 300 or so people, many of whom seem to be involved in farming. There's a school building but no school, and no shops that I'm aware of. At the edge of the village there's a modest stadium where LKS Rybna play their home games (their club crest is a shark, and Rybna translates literally to "Fis…Sat, 15 Nov 2025 20:46:12 +0000http://adamkingston.annohost.net/text/the-transit-camp-for-jews-at-riebnigToday is the third consecutive day I've travelled from Wrocław to Rybna, a small village known as Riebnig when my great-grandparents were interned in a transit camp there between November 1941 and March 1943, prior to their deportation to Auschwitz. The most convenient way to reach Rybna would be by car, but when reading Alfred Konieczny's research on the transit camp, I noted that deportees were…Fri, 14 Nov 2025 20:14:26 +0000http://adamkingston.annohost.net/text/kornik-and-the-origins-of-the-kornicker-family-nameKingston is a kind of anglicisation of Kornicker, my grandfather's surname before he changed it when applying to become a naturalised British citizen in 1947. We're not sure why Kingston, but perhaps the choice was prompted by some association with place (more likely Kingston upon Thames than Hull). In retrospect, the choice seems carefully judged: unambiguously English, with deep Anglo-Saxon root…Tue, 04 Nov 2025 19:00:07 +0000http://adamkingston.annohost.net/text/auschwitz-via-riebnig-unravelling-the-family-recordMy very earliest attempts to understand something of the fate of my great-grandparents led me to JewishGen.org and the misconception that they were murdered at Theriesenstadt concentration camp, in modern-day Czechia, having passed through a transit camp at "Riebnig". Documents in the Arolsen Archive relating to my grandfather's search for his parents further muddied the water, with references to…Wed, 29 Oct 2025 18:02:02 +0000http://adamkingston.annohost.net/text/wiedereinburgerungMy grandfather's half-brother, and my great-uncle, was Peter Kornicker, born in 1917 in Breslau to my great-grandfather Georg and his first wife, Herta (née Cohen). His mother died in 1919 when he was just a year old. Peter was lined up to work in the family law firm, but with the situation in Germany growing increasingly difficult he left Breslau in 1937, travelling to the Netherlands to attend a…Tue, 28 Oct 2025 18:27:25 +0000http://adamkingston.annohost.net/text/the-arolsen-archives-and-evidence-of-lingering-hopeA recent attempt to learn more about the fate of my great-grandparents, Georg and Else, led to the Arolsen Archives and the discovery of a Red Cross Enquiry made by my grandfather in 1946, when he was 20 years old. This is a single-page tracing request with scant information, and yet is a deeply human, personal document that carries within its bureaucratic form a suggestion of my grandfather's gri…Sun, 26 Oct 2025 12:14:29 +0000http://adamkingston.annohost.net/text/an-excerpt-from-the-classic-slum-robert-robertsI recently re-read Robert Roberts' classic, <em>The Classic Slum</em>. There's a passage in the text that I've included below that I think stands as one of the most quietly devastating pieces of moral realism in twentieth-century British writing—an example of working-class self-critique that reveals how deprivation, fear and ignorance can deform empathy, yet also how individual acts of kindness can quietly…Thu, 23 Oct 2025 15:46:50 +0100http://adamkingston.annohost.net/text/great-aunt-barbara-barbel-on-green-asparagus-cricket-and-englishmenMy great-aunt Barbara (Bärbel) was 16 when she wrote this piece and would have recently begun her studies at Stamford High School, following her escape from Nazi Germany via Kindertransport in May 1939. Her and my 14-year-old grandfather arrived at Harwich on 18 May 1939, having travelled from Breslau, presumably via Berlin and the Hook of Holland. They stayed a few days at the Butlin's holiday ca…Thu, 09 Oct 2025 19:08:32 +0100http://adamkingston.annohost.net/text/wzgorza-z-gruzu-the-rubble-hills-of-post-war-wroclawJust off Ślężna in Wrocław, between the University of Economics and Aquapark, is a strange topographical feature that rises 140 metres above sea level in a city that's otherwise very flat. Wzgórze Andersa is laid out in four tiers, has a kind of parkour gym near the bottom, a pump track at the top, and when you get up close you can tell that the entire hill is formed of millions of broken bricks. I…Sat, 13 Sep 2025 10:30:44 +0100http://adamkingston.annohost.net/text/installing-stolpersteine-at-charlottenstrasse-22The development of a body of photographic work is an aside to my main priority: the installation of Stolpersteine in Wrocław in memory of my great-grandparents, Georg and Else Kornicker, who were murdered at Auschwitz in 1943. In order to install Stolpersteine, it's necessary to precisely identify—on a contemporary street plan—the entrance to the building where Georg and Else lived prior to <em>Enteig</em>…Mon, 08 Sep 2025 20:16:57 +0100