Urbanautica

BLURRING THE LINES. A VISIBLE CONTEMPORARY

by Elisa Dainelli

A collection of memories and myths. If shared it prompts the character of a social archive.

© Catalog Blurring the Lines 2022, published by Urbanautica Institute

Gathering and choosing a selection of portfolios of photography students take work, especially if the latter come from different parts of the world. Narrative planes intersect, and cultural interpretations intertwine and show realities many kilometers away in a stylistically complex homogeneous, and preciously composed. Therefore, leafing through the "Blurring the lines" 2022 edition is a kind of delicate matter for me. After an initial phase, a suspension of judgment, or "epoché," I immersed myself in the first works that most struck my curiosity. I know that my ethnically centered gaze may offer me a distorted version of the message the photographer/s wanted to convey. However, I let the images resonate, and the proposed narration reaches my sensitivity with all its charges, and I find, with the slowness of observation conscious, the hidden meanings.

© Catalog Blurring the Lines 2022, published by Urbanautica Institute

For this 2022 edition, many elements resonated in my unconscious. First of all, memory. Some works had a more or less direct reference to remembrance and the passing of time. Interestingly, the tool par excellence of conservation of memory, or photography, can be the object of a metamemory or a reflection on preserving memory beyond the mere collection of instants. Manuel Alejandro Beltràn Zorro's project, "Imàgenes de la Basura," is the clearest example: a set of archive images of strangers immersed in piles of garbage. These discarded and thrown away photographs, which he found in his family's waste storage and recycling company, have lost their primary referent, i.e., the people who attributed an emotional and memorial value to these same images. These "figures" lay in a dump as a dead memory. Yet these traces of images are like seeds of a subsequent neo-performativity, of a re-enactment that can raise a social memory. The action by the Colombian visual artist allows photographs to re-emerge from the surface of oblivion, favor dialogue and boost connectivity over the generations. Therefore, the word and the image enter a tight relationship, closer to orality's value in myth: a recurrence of figures and expressions that allow memorization and transmission.

© Manuel Alejandro Beltrán Zorro from the series "Imágenes de la basura"

Furthermore, this leads us to other projects in which the photographer's act of looking reflects an image mind of the body in space, an absence that designates a presence of the past. The works of Mahboube Karamli, "Mother," and Cristian Arrigada Seguel, "Family shipwreck," are examples. The mother's absence resonates strongly in Karamli's images, and the shape of the clothes left on the ground during the pandemic in Seguel's project lets us savor the sense of loss without evoking or defining what is missing. The clothes represent those who are no longer there but occupy a precise place, impersonating the absence. In these two cases, the photographer's perception establishes an unconscious relationship between the external image and the incessant projection activity that makes up visual perception. The result is what Vischer called "visual empathy" (Severi, 2004), which causes mental connotations to become an essential part of the visual experience.

© Mahboube Karamli from the series "Mother"

© Patricia Rodas from the series "Unseen Circumstances"

The clothes used, like a second skin, which defines who we are and our expression of us, lead us to another project and another theme: fire. The burnt clothes of Patricia Rodas, in "Unseen Circumstances," speak to us of a memory that instead was violently canceled. It tells us about domestic violence as a social problem that burns and silently erodes the lives of those suffering it. In this case, the memory is erased, leaving room for the suffocating sense of persecution, which slowly "eats" the life of those who suffer violence like a fire that, from below, swallows the clothes, the subject of the photographs. Similarly, fire seeks to erase and devour but leaves a glimpse of the naked figure of Abdul Razzak. The "Fractures of Times" photographer recomposes his figure by putting together images like a puzzle: a strong need in a historical era in which being "liquid" (Zygmunt Bauman) also forces us to feel lost among many selves. In this project, trauma mixes with fragmentation, is an integral part.

© Abdul Razzak Jauhar from the series "Fractures of Times"

Gender fluidity, addressed by different projects in this anthology, carries us to the opposite element of the one mentioned above: water. Being fluid, hiding out of necessity the own identity, not understanding its definition, and therefore moving among many meanings, never exhaustive. The fluidity of water can be an element of relationship: it is part of individuals, and of them, it can determine relationships, as in the series "Only in Good Taste" by Kush Kukreja. In this work, the Yamuna River in India reminds us how nature can affect our lives and how we, as human beings, we influence it. By reproducing the effect of pollutants on the film, the photographer warns us that once the planet's destruction process has been triggered, we are left with only oblivion and disintegration to serve as our future.

© Kush Kukreja from the series "Only In Good Taste'.

An interweaving of narratives leads us towards multiple consciences and makes us reflect, through stories, how photography stimulates our powerful imaginative faculty to change our present. Blurring the lines is a collection of memories and myths. If shared, it prompts the character of a social archive.

Blurring the Lines is a non-profit organization that seeks to promote and encourage all initiatives in various fields of photography and education, contributing to academic, local, and global dialogues, enabling young graduates to obtain international recognition- Partnered by Paris College of Art, FOTODOK, European Cultural Centre.

The Catalog of Blurring the Lines is part of the exhibition TIME SPACE EXISTENCE at Palazzo Mora (European Cultural Centre) in Venice. The Biennale Architettura 2023 offers the right contest for Blurring the Lines talents selected by last year's call. Biennale will be held from Saturday 20 May to Sunday 26 November (pre-opening 18 and 19 May), curated by academic, educator and best-selling novelist Lesley Lokko, who has commented: “Architects have a unique opportunity to put forward ambitious and creative ideas that help us imagine a more equitable and optimistic future in common”.

Links

Catalog Blurring the Lines 23
Archive projects Blurring the Lines's call 23

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