Nostalgia: Death and Memory
In this work, I explore the concepts of memory and the passage of time, melancholy -face to face with death-, through photographic experiences. The use of the concept of "constellation" developed by Walter Benjamin was a useful reference to understand the fact that punctual photographs are connected to us and form a memory. The work steps in to the notions of return and shutdown the time. I chose to be the subject of these pictures because it is a quest of my memory. The content of the photographs is less important in this context than the shapes and spaces. This is a story that the trace of the narrator is visible. Clichés are accessing to a nonlinear memory: the past is remembered in this eternal sense. My reflection, work and practice are particularly supported by essays of Walter Benjamin, Milan Kundera, Lilian Forest, Tarkovsky and criticism by Mohammad Sanati, Simone de Beauvoir and Morad Farhadpour.
Since my childhood one of the activities that never lost its originality and attraction was watching the family albums connected to the past first without any trace of me, then years later, with traces of me. Those pictures always throw me far away in unknown places with unknown people.
It was my mother's twelve year birthday anniversary. My grandparents gave her a photo camera “Lubitel2-medium format” as a present. In these family albums there are too many photos without my mother's presence. Color and black and white.
In may 2008, I decided to use this camera which hadn't been used for many years, the camera which, during all these years hadn't been face to face with familiar figures; and now, through it, through these pictures, they will re-live the past eternally.
However in the world where I live, it's more logical or common to use digital cameras, I wanted to manipulate a camera which was in harmony with the concept of nostalgia, memory and death. This camera was a part of my life too. A big part of my life had been registered by this camera. Moreover, the harmony between the form and the context was important as well. At the beginning I started with black and white film rolls, but after I realized that the real world which I'm talking about is colorful. Therefore I used the color “FUJI” film-rolls with 100 AsA sensibility and three “KODAK” color film-rolls of 200 AsA sensibility which their shelf life had been passed; so I could have the fog on my photos and also to show the consummation of the moments and instants.
The diaphragm and the shutter speed were different or variable due to time, space and light.
I took some of these photos with an amber filter to have a nostalgic ambience. In some of them I used the black edge of the filter to give imaginary atmosphere. A cord between reality and dream.
Statement
The clock clicks. The click of the camera merges with the sound of the hand of the clock. This is the second that I knee for hating this passing of time, which adds new white hairs to my beloved.
… I only search the present moment, but I just find the confirmation of the past, inevitably.
The sound of the camera stimulates an unreal feeling inside me, making me believe that I have captured this moment, this special moment, the moment that belongs to me, a part of me, a part of my life that remains unique forever.
I have no vision from the future. If my soul dig the time to the future it doesn't find any reality, any truth, nothing. Only the pure white empty pages that have not yet been filled. No picture, no memory. My mind, like my photos has been projected to my past. Not even a sign of the present. Every thing takes place in the past.
But me, the photographer of these moments create nothing just a surface, a membrane and I can not get through their vague and secret inside.
And the photographer goes on...
My mind show me a new part of me, every day. A spectacle that I look involuntarily and let the others watch too. And these papers become infinite because of my presence. These captured moments are as short as the click of my camera but they are extended to infinity. This surface, this paper reminds me all those lost moments, forever.
Sometimes I feel the absence. Some family photos in front of me, captured without me. The images of the past without ME. Sometimes, by looking at them, the emptiness shows itself to me. A deep sad experience. But sometimes, some pale photos, make me feel these moments with a new sharpness and I feel knowing these slices of life even if I didn't live them.
