KARST: 708 Assessment.
- Kieran Collins
- Jun 24, 2021
- 4 min read
Spring Is Here Framing statement:
Interpreting photographs pose a series of challenges to different pasts, as memory interweaves with private fantasy and public history. Yet, unlike memory, photographs do not in themselves preserve meaning. They offer instant appearances. Meaning in the result of understanding a photograph, one must acknowledge a photograph takes place in time and must only be explained in time.
Led by repeated attempts of understanding the individual within the photograph abstraction emerges. Slippage between truth and narrative materialise as questions of identity. Bridging boarders, one must describe what can be seen to gain new understandings. Equilibriums between public and private are investigated where examinations around looking and seeing inform the output of the work itself.
Detachments of using traditional paper-based photography have led onto an experimental body of work, in turn; safeguarding the ‘original’ from becoming altered and potentially lost forever in time. Through digital technology manipulation outputs, the work can often be considered as uncanny. Departed is now the tactility of holding a person’s image that has run through so many hands before you. Instead, it can be seen dancing across the walls of a gallery or shared instantly online. The GIF alters the perception of what everyone has at home, the traditional family album, however. All images contain narratives, through this body of work an unravelling of narrative is discovered.
I am both your directions,
Existing more in the cold morning frost,
A murmur in my thoughts,
The kiss from the abyss,
Now finally
Spring is here.
Summery:
An act of faith in the future
A year of turmoil presents new challenges and new positions in practice.
Understanding that my nan was adopted at three months old confronted everything I had known before.
A new beginning became evident, and self-understanding became prominent,
During a year of loss, both in practice and in extended family a digital presence was emerging. Firstly, a series of printed books. Questioning my position around public and private. Then work based around other digital technology. Digital GIF’s; this what the building blocks around the exhibition at KARST.
Through my art practice I introduce the exploration of old domestic photographs, I have spent the past two years collecting orphan albums and photographs. I am now a proud owner of a collection of 1550 orphan photographs.
Throughout this project I have attempted to understand the identities of the unknown individuals within my orphan photographic collections. I have researched how old family photography and that of albums are key to understanding one’s own identity and the identity of the family, history; memory and narrative. Photography is often linked to memory. The relationship between them appears to be both intuitive and essentially contested. ‘We speak of images or snapshots of the past when we recreate memories, call especially vivid recollections “flashbulb memories” and recreate elements of the past in the mind’s eye’ (Shevchenko, 2014, p.3).
Concerned around the ideas of public and private. There are two types of photographs one’s public and ones for private, private photographs contain family photography.
From looking and spending time with my collection I have understood that to understand their accurate identities. One must look at the photographs with great detail and describe what I see. Seeing is the sense or faculty of sight or vision and that looking is to glance or to gaze. In order to see; not only does one look at the object but they also understand it, perceives it and pays attention to it. Perception means recognizing or relating what the eyes see with prior knowledge of the object.
John Berger’s quote ‘Yet, unlike memory, photographs do not in themselves preserve meaning. They offer appearances – with all the credibility and gravity we normally lend to appearances- prised away from their meaning. Meaning in the result of understanding functions. “And functioning takes place in time and must be explained in time. Only that which narrates can make us understand.” Photographs preserve instant appearances. (Berger,2013,p.55) As I do not understand these stories the only way, I can portray their accurate narrative and identity Is through describing the subject within the image.
A photograph serves as a memento from a life being lived. “Yet, unlike memory, Photographs do not in themselves preserve meaning. They offer appearances – with all credibility and gravity we normally lend to appearances - prised away from their meaning.’ (Berger, 2009, p.55). Meaning which a photograph can be a trigger object for us to recall a memory, but the photograph doesn’t capture the memory, it can capture the essence of a memory.
From recently discovering that my Nan Carol Ann was adopted it has urged me to reconnect with my family photographs. Still connecting with ideas around understanding identity though looking at a photograph. I wanted to understand if photographs of Carol held answers to her adoption.
From using a magnifying glass and spending quality time with the photographs I couldn’t find any clues or answers to her adoption, thinking back on the previous theory that I read, Berger wrote that photographs do not in themselves preserve meaning and can’t be explained. The only way of understanding the true meaning of a photograph is letting the image itself speak for itself. This is my attempt.
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