r/r/p

REJECTED/RE-COLLECTED/PROJECTED

A small series of manipulated family photographs


In essence all of my work begins with reference to personal and family history -

Sometimes overt -

Sometimes more opaque or obscure -


For me memory is a vital resource, even though it is often unreliable and fragmentary -

Obscured by the clouds of time -


For all of us the family photographic archive is a window on the past and a key to remembering - Proof that we exist and are connected -

Linked to the flow of time -


As recordings of family events, usually recalled as happy occasions, birthdays, weddings, a new car and the like, photographs serve as an adjunct to memory - Communal experience of ritual and tradition - Collective memory -

Helping us to own the past -


Often these images are captured with haste, quickly, before the candles are blown out or the smile vanishes. Subsequently they are often awkwardly framed, badly lit - Off kilter - For me this adds another dimension which, in these images, I am attempting to emphasise by selecting even tighter croppings and bringing attention to hidden or easily ignoreable details on the edges, marginalised - Exploring a barely extant landscape with indistinct tools - Faulty memory and the fact that I did not take the photographs in the first place -


Rejected: Through forgetting -

Re-collected: Through remembering -

Projected: Through editing and recombining -




Simon Hope
August 2007

http://www.cac.org.mk/capital/Projects/Slavica/default.asp

http://www.tau.ac.il/arts/projects/PUB/assaph-art/assaph3/articles_assaph3/10wigoder.pdf

http://www.tate.org.uk/onlineevents/archive/beecroft_parker/