Bis jetzt nichts erhalten - schreibe!
de Martin John Bailey
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Andrew Kawczak is a retired Professor of Philosophy. He came to live in Chester, UK, with his wife Elizabeth in 2009 after many years of teaching and living in Canada. He was born in Poland in the early 1920s. His father, Stanislav, was a lawyer and writer, who served as a captain in the Polish army during the First World War. His practice as a lawyer was interrupted when he was again called up for action at the commencement of the Second World War.
This book is dedicated to Andrew and the memory of his father who was murdered by the Soviets in 1940. The series of photographs that follow does not attempt to give a chronological and detailed account of the events that led up to his death but to evoke the impression the experiences of Stanislav had on his son and, of course, myself. The resulting images are a juxtaposition of portraits and slide projections of text produced following conversations I have had with Andrew combined with Polish Second World War press photographs.
Geoffrey Batchen, in ‘Forget Me Not’, argues that photographs evoke a physical presence of the referent by the addition of hybrid objects to the photograph. The nineteenth century was the heyday of the memorial photograph when hair, part of a child’s dress or words from the deceased with their photograph were used in objects like lockets, bracelets, etc. These objects can be seen as ‘standing in’ for the body of the deceased where as Batchen succinctly puts it, “Hybrid objects constitute a sceptical commentary on our capacity of photography, by itself, to provide a compelling memorial experience”. Exploiting memories and employing other significant objects like text and press footage, the photograph can function as a memorial object.
Stanislav’s, as well as Andrew’s experiences and memories, will always be absent to us. No photograph can recover the events leading up to Stanislav’s death or even Andrew’s memories. In exploring the narrative and story in the events outlined from my conversations with Andrew, I have attempted to resurrect my interpretation of these rich and sometimes disturbing experiences, thereby uncovering and often re-imagining the past. These images attempt to evoke the strong impression that memories of these experiences have had on Andrew and the significance, as I see it, of how words on a telegram, days prior to his father’s murder, can act as a call from the grave, an imperative to write or act, thus projecting into Andrew’s future success as a writer and philosopher. ‘Bis jetzt nichts erhalten – schreibe!’ (Up to now got nothing – write!) becomes a kind of testament to the imperative of the father. I have created text from Andrew’s voice which itself relates a strong memory of a particular telegram. A subject is conjured up and a presence lingers. The text here, stands in for the body of the absent father and serves as a metonymic memorial function. The telegram and its imperative no longer exists and is only present in Andrew’s memory. His father’s immediate message seems to have been about his terrible anguish and concern for his family – no letters got through to him while he was held captive in a detention centre and he had no contact with the outside world. Days after the telegram was received, Stanislav was murdered. It is what is not said in the telegram that resonates for me.
As Andrew himself is a direct link to his father, it seemed a natural choice to reference him in the photographs, as he is a direct link to Stanislav. Projecting onto his face and hands serves to create a mask that reflects back fragments of Andrew’s and Stanislav’s experiences. I photographed Andrew holding Stanislav’s book (perhaps the finest Polish book written on the First World War) as one of Andrew’s most prized possessions, along with the portrait of his son, daughter-in-law and grandchild. Andrew has few possessions left from that time. After the Second World War, he ‘escaped’ the Soviet occupation to build a new life in Canada. He has his father’s book and many precious memories. The conversations with Andrew, Polish wartime press photographs and Andrew as a subject himself have helped me to build a series of images that attempt to “provide a compelling memorial experience”.
This series of photographs does not seek to be an accurate translation of an event or a past but attempts to bring the sensations that belong to memory into the realms of the photographic experience.
You can read the full transcripts from the conversations with Andrew at the back of this book.
You can hear the conversations with Andrew at http://www.ideas-elastic.co.uk/maphotos.html
This book is dedicated to Andrew and the memory of his father who was murdered by the Soviets in 1940. The series of photographs that follow does not attempt to give a chronological and detailed account of the events that led up to his death but to evoke the impression the experiences of Stanislav had on his son and, of course, myself. The resulting images are a juxtaposition of portraits and slide projections of text produced following conversations I have had with Andrew combined with Polish Second World War press photographs.
Geoffrey Batchen, in ‘Forget Me Not’, argues that photographs evoke a physical presence of the referent by the addition of hybrid objects to the photograph. The nineteenth century was the heyday of the memorial photograph when hair, part of a child’s dress or words from the deceased with their photograph were used in objects like lockets, bracelets, etc. These objects can be seen as ‘standing in’ for the body of the deceased where as Batchen succinctly puts it, “Hybrid objects constitute a sceptical commentary on our capacity of photography, by itself, to provide a compelling memorial experience”. Exploiting memories and employing other significant objects like text and press footage, the photograph can function as a memorial object.
Stanislav’s, as well as Andrew’s experiences and memories, will always be absent to us. No photograph can recover the events leading up to Stanislav’s death or even Andrew’s memories. In exploring the narrative and story in the events outlined from my conversations with Andrew, I have attempted to resurrect my interpretation of these rich and sometimes disturbing experiences, thereby uncovering and often re-imagining the past. These images attempt to evoke the strong impression that memories of these experiences have had on Andrew and the significance, as I see it, of how words on a telegram, days prior to his father’s murder, can act as a call from the grave, an imperative to write or act, thus projecting into Andrew’s future success as a writer and philosopher. ‘Bis jetzt nichts erhalten – schreibe!’ (Up to now got nothing – write!) becomes a kind of testament to the imperative of the father. I have created text from Andrew’s voice which itself relates a strong memory of a particular telegram. A subject is conjured up and a presence lingers. The text here, stands in for the body of the absent father and serves as a metonymic memorial function. The telegram and its imperative no longer exists and is only present in Andrew’s memory. His father’s immediate message seems to have been about his terrible anguish and concern for his family – no letters got through to him while he was held captive in a detention centre and he had no contact with the outside world. Days after the telegram was received, Stanislav was murdered. It is what is not said in the telegram that resonates for me.
As Andrew himself is a direct link to his father, it seemed a natural choice to reference him in the photographs, as he is a direct link to Stanislav. Projecting onto his face and hands serves to create a mask that reflects back fragments of Andrew’s and Stanislav’s experiences. I photographed Andrew holding Stanislav’s book (perhaps the finest Polish book written on the First World War) as one of Andrew’s most prized possessions, along with the portrait of his son, daughter-in-law and grandchild. Andrew has few possessions left from that time. After the Second World War, he ‘escaped’ the Soviet occupation to build a new life in Canada. He has his father’s book and many precious memories. The conversations with Andrew, Polish wartime press photographs and Andrew as a subject himself have helped me to build a series of images that attempt to “provide a compelling memorial experience”.
This series of photographs does not seek to be an accurate translation of an event or a past but attempts to bring the sensations that belong to memory into the realms of the photographic experience.
You can read the full transcripts from the conversations with Andrew at the back of this book.
You can hear the conversations with Andrew at http://www.ideas-elastic.co.uk/maphotos.html
Características y detalles
- Categoría principal: Libros de arte y fotografía
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Características: Apaisado estándar, 25×20 cm
N.º de páginas: 40 - Fecha de publicación: abr. 27, 2011
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