Ghosts, Traces & Stories

I am looking for ways to tell today’s story whilst also bringing yesterday’s in front of the viewer.

Anyone who has visited a Genocide Museum, anywhere in the world, will find comments in the Visitor’s Book to the effect that ‘this must not be forgotten’. Whatever reason we visit, paying our respects and acting in witness and remembrance go hand in hand.

Yet too many entries in the Tuol Sleng Visitor’s Book note that the visitor really had no idea what had happened.

The events were ‘hidden’ at the time, and overtaken by other Global news. There was no social media to get the story out.

And, frankly, whilst the Government faithfully ‘remembers’ via the official days in the calendar, the Genocide is still to some extent pushed to one side, for complex political reasons. I continue to see this as Unfinished Business.

I have been researching ways to ‘do’ aftermath photography, and am intrigued by the idea of ‘traces’ of what is left behind.

I have also been re-visiting some of my artwork.

Dusty & Cilla, 1966

I didn’t know it at the time, but an example of ‘appropriation’.

More of my work from that era.

Delft, 1982

Painting / Drawing

This module (Surfaces & Strategies) also puts front and centre the challenges of presentation.

Collage might be an answer.

Images that combine the hidden, yet educate. Images that portray Sarath and others, yet also bring the traces into sharp focus, literally.

And blending media.

Work in progress.

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Herschdorfer, Natalie. 2011. Afterwards. London: Thames & Hudson.

Ristelhueber, Sophie & Mayer, Marc & Ladd, Jeffrey. 2009. Sophie Ristelhueber: Fait (Books on Books). New York: Errata.