 |
| Ziyah chart, you can Quest for identity |
of a different nature, far more dramatic than those described in the previous note Boltanski - are the findings of the grand plan Quest for identity of the photographer Bosnian Ziyah Gafic . For two years Gafic photographer's personal items found in mass graves where they were anonymously buried the victims of the massacres carried out by the forces of Ratko Mladic. Destination of the photo will be the network ( www.Quest.bo is currently not yet active) to be recognized, or rather, to be able to trace the identity of the owners through their missing.
In all this two things strike me. The first is the image (a small sample on September 19 No of Wired, but I also found this English blog ). Formally, it is of still-life compounds with strict simplicity: portraits of humble everyday objects (cutlery, currency, sunglasses, keys, watches, toothbrushes) or emotional (Polaroid muddy or burnt edges and colors that change color to yellow). The choices of recovery are neutral: the view from above, the soft light, without shadows, the background: an anonymous gray panel that is repeated in all images. The same neutral caption: a code that corresponds to the number under which the ' International Commission on Missing Persons lists Ritov & bones and place of discovery. In short, all the devices together to avoid disturbing statement adopted the recognition of the subject. Gafic as if it had imposed the rule laid down rules for the production of photo-identity cards for access to documents: to minimize the possibility of polluting the identity of the subject. I realize suddenly that the proposed changes Gafic photos (personal items) in identity papers of a subject (person) died, that his act is a load of photographic piety and moral strength with where photography is also an instrument capable of giving identity to the world , any one, perhaps not perfect, but still identity, which is essential to memory. Then I asked myself, and I ask those who want to read these lines, how many and what other images, including the billions of photographs taken, they are - even in a metaphorical sense - as many of the world identity, or even attempts to provide a identity possible bodies, faces, stories, gestures, places?
The other thing that strikes me is the place chosen by Gafic for the transmission of images: the network, turned into a huge board on which to hang these tracks, leave something to restore identity, to someone. The deal to share visual information per se is not new. I think, for example, portraits published in the newspapers to facilitate the discovery of all family members soppravvissuti ' Holocaust or, more recently, the panels set up in the huge refugee camps in Zaire, on which the Tutsis from Rwanda fleeing hung photos relatives disappeared in the hope that other refugees, interception, could provide information of any kind. But the thing that strikes me is right here, in the idea that, basically, around the world can be a huge refugee camp and photography, with its practices, not only through the functions of representation, but also seeking lost identity.
In the bottom of all this, I wonder if there is, perhaps, a little 'space groped for a chapter in the history of photography as a story of identity lost or refused (immigrants, refugees, stateless persons , orphans, migrants, minorities and outcasts of every kind ...); or to create a photographic project to be carried through, with a cleaner look, the refugee camp in the world.
0 comments:
Post a Comment