Giving pause

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Hock, K.K. ORCID: 0000-0002-2185-0261, 2015. Giving pause. In: CONTEMPHOTO '15: International Visual Culture and Contemporary Photography Conference on Urban Identities, Nazým Hikmet Cultural Center, Istanbul, 9-10 June 2015. Istanbul, Turkey: Dakam Publishing, pp. 255-272. (Forthcoming)

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Abstract

Using my own photographic practice as an example, in this paper I propose to reflect on how the medium of photography, that has historically been associated
with the representation of the real, can be employed to address personal and cultural memories. I want to explore how the artist’s personal and cultural memory becomes interwoven with the live encounter with a particular landscape, and how this experience can operate within the process of making the work and also as part of the final artwork itself. Having grown up close to the Dutch border with Germany, adjacent to a large woodland, personal childhood memories have become located within specific woodland and borderland territory. Being of German nationality, these personal memories are not only interlinked with fairytale stories but by now are also informed by knowledge of atrocities committed by the Nazis in woodlands all over Europe, thereby exploring the relationship between what is shown and what might only be suggested in the photograph. Addressing the visible in the invisible, the photographed locations hint towards these scenes of criminality.
I am interested in how these different registers of meaning and memory are simultaneously present in my encounter with a landscape, and in exploring through
what means photographic representation can attest to the memory or past of a landscape, as much as recording the moment in which it was taken. My current enquiry involves walking and wandering through woodlands in the UK, the
memories of other woodlands and times accompanying me on my journey through a different place and time. The photographed woodland becomes a site for exploring
how individual and collectve memory have the capacity to affectvely rupture the experience of the present, or how the memory of one landscape can affect the experience of another. How can photography reflect on the past experiences of childhood (as well as collective memory of place) whilst also recording the here and now?

Item Type:	Chapter in book
Creators:	Hock, K.K.
Publisher:	Dakam Publishing
Place of Publication:	Istanbul, Turkey
Date:	2015
Divisions:	Schools > School of Art and Design
Record created by:	Jill Tomkinson
Date Added:	06 Apr 2016 14:19
Last Modified:	09 Jun 2017 14:00
Related URLs:	Organisation
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/27388