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In my work, I try to explore the definition of reality. Reality is essentially events taking place within a specific time. But reality and thus the concept of time can be defined and interpreted differently by different people: the elderly, the children and the mentally handicapped. I explore the effect that the passage of time has on memories, on relationships and on beliefs and try to understand how specific moments/events relate to and define each other at sometimes distant times. Recently I came across ”memento mori” photographs popular in Victorian
North America and Europe. These photographs were taken of deceased family members to preserve their memory and to come to terms with the disruption that death brought to the family. Today the prevailing method of dealing with the permanence of death is to put it out of mind, in the 19th century the tendency was the opposite – to retain the presence of the deceased person. The most striking of the daguerreotypes were images of children because the viewer was deceived into believing that the child was in a state of slumber and I suppose because it was and still is,
much more difficult to accept the death of a child. The concept of death as sleep has an extremely long history and in the 19th century it responded to the need to symbolically maintain the presence of the deceased. My book assemblages draw upon these illusions. The fact that I use this object that is the book, to create a box, an enclosure, not only serves as a metaphor for a vessel holding information, memories/life experiences, but also the overlapping of images within the opening creates an illusion of suspension between dual realities. The figures exist in relation to each other, but also separate; they exist suspended in time with their presence symbolically maintained. The passage of time has been stopped and with it, mortality has been put on hold ……....
At least for a short while. |