Visual research of the Elusive nature of memory
The Art of (Not) Forgetting
"Being stripped of your memories is an act of violence that is perhaps akin to having one's life taken" is a phrase of Yoko Ogawa's, a Japanese writer, the author of "Memory Police" novel that inspired me to make a project about recollections. In my photobook "The Art of (Not) Forgetting" I explore the most painful and the most resourceful memories of the Belarusians collected and photographed in winter/spring 2021. In this project, I am exploring the potential of memory as a space that belogns to us only, a space that we can and need to take care of in the times of memory censorship and manipulation.
Japanese writer Yoko Ogawa, the author of "The Memory Police", published in her homeland in 1994 and translated into English in 2019, considers memories as a determining factor in people's personality.
"Being stripped of your memories is an act of violence that is perhaps akin to having your very life taken", she concludes in a recent interview.
"Being stripped of your memories is an act of violence that is perhaps akin to having your very life taken", she concludes in a recent interview.
The dystopian novel unfolds on an unnamed island whose inhabitants, under a harsh dictatorship, are regularly forced into forgetting that results from the memory control, a policy that is widely applied in that state. They are periodically stripped of both certain objects and the very words that describe them, and their memories of both vanish shortly. One morning, people may simply wake up to discover that ribbons, roses, or birds have disappered from their mental and linguistic landscape. Breaking into homes, conducting searches, and confiscating photographs, books, drawings, and diaries, special memory police root out any trace of newly forbidden concepts.
My accidental encounter with Ogawa’s book - intuitively picked up at an airport bookstore - revealed unsettling parallels with our own time, in which repression, arrests, and fabricated trials of innocent people define political realities in many countries, Belarus being only one of them. Memory is what anchors us: it outlines and fills in the contours of the self, shaping our perception of “here and now” and informing our understanding of past decisions and actions - whether they were fully lived or merely imagined. Remembering who you were yesterday and who you are today determines the shape of your tomorrow.
My accidental encounter with Ogawa’s book - intuitively picked up at an airport bookstore - revealed unsettling parallels with our own time, in which repression, arrests, and fabricated trials of innocent people define political realities in many countries, Belarus being only one of them. Memory is what anchors us: it outlines and fills in the contours of the self, shaping our perception of “here and now” and informing our understanding of past decisions and actions - whether they were fully lived or merely imagined. Remembering who you were yesterday and who you are today determines the shape of your tomorrow.
Across history, authorities have understood the power of memory transmitted through oral stories or cultural artifacts, and have therefore sought to control how people remember—to impose a “correct” version of the past. Works deemed improper or dangerous have been censored or destroyed: in Nazi Germany in the 1930s, books at odds with the official ideology were publicly burned; similar fates befell Kurdish literature in Iran in 1946 and the Jaffna Public Library in Sri Lanka in 1981.
And yet, as history also shows, the desire to remember often proves stronger than repression. The poetry of Osip Mandelstam, persecuted under Stalin, survives precisely because his wife, Nadezhda, learned it by heart.
And yet, as history also shows, the desire to remember often proves stronger than repression. The poetry of Osip Mandelstam, persecuted under Stalin, survives precisely because his wife, Nadezhda, learned it by heart.
The Art of (Not) Forgetting, conceived in February 2021, reflects a need to preserve the memories of people living through a traumatic historical moment - memories that, because of their intensity, risk being quickly distorted. My encounters with the approximately thirty participants took place online, when, facing the screens of their home laptops, they allowed me to photograph them during the processes of remembering the most resourceful and forgetting the most painful memories. Controlled, or in any way censored by themselves only, the participants then shared with me the stories behind these recollections, also chosing the format they felt appropriate (oral or written).
If shared, any individual act of remembering can become collective and have a long-term impact. The mutual exchange of one's intimate thoughts with the Other is worthy of attention as a symbolic practice in the "space of power" we are able to create ourselves. Under hard conditions many of us are forced to live today, I would like us to turn to our past more often and not to devaluate the wonderful moments we were lucky to experience.
We need to learn to share, to listen, to learn to be grateful and accept our, in fact very obvious, similarities.
We need to learn to share, to listen, to learn to be grateful and accept our, in fact very obvious, similarities.
Publications related or inspired by "The Art of (Not) Forgetting":
1 - "The Place that Belongs to Us Only" Olga Bubich about her new photobook, the right to memory and personal responsibility - interview (in Russian)
2 - "From Memory - to Oneself" - analytical essay on the role of personal and collective memories (in Russian)
3 - Olga Bubich: "My Photobook Is an Attempt to Remain Myself Through Art" - interview (in Belarusian)
4 - "The Art of (Not) Forgetting - Photographing Memories As a Way to Resist Censorship" (in English)
5 - "Memory is Nothing Like a Dragonfly Frozen in Amber». Оlga Bubich – on her new photobook «The Art of (Not) Forgetting" - interview (in Russian)
6 - "The Art of Remembering: Memories as a Way to Resist Censorship" - analytical essay (in English)
7 - "Memory Ownership: No-one and 9.4 Million" - review on the group exhibition organized as a part of the International Week of Belarusian Culture (in Georgian)
8 - "Overcoming Public Amnesia – Counter-Memory as a Tool to Challenge Official Narratives" - analytical essay (in English)
9 - "Who Owns Your Memories?" - a review by Katherine Oktober Matthews (in English)
1 - "The Place that Belongs to Us Only" Olga Bubich about her new photobook, the right to memory and personal responsibility - interview (in Russian)
2 - "From Memory - to Oneself" - analytical essay on the role of personal and collective memories (in Russian)
3 - Olga Bubich: "My Photobook Is an Attempt to Remain Myself Through Art" - interview (in Belarusian)
4 - "The Art of (Not) Forgetting - Photographing Memories As a Way to Resist Censorship" (in English)
5 - "Memory is Nothing Like a Dragonfly Frozen in Amber». Оlga Bubich – on her new photobook «The Art of (Not) Forgetting" - interview (in Russian)
6 - "The Art of Remembering: Memories as a Way to Resist Censorship" - analytical essay (in English)
7 - "Memory Ownership: No-one and 9.4 Million" - review on the group exhibition organized as a part of the International Week of Belarusian Culture (in Georgian)
8 - "Overcoming Public Amnesia – Counter-Memory as a Tool to Challenge Official Narratives" - analytical essay (in English)
9 - "Who Owns Your Memories?" - a review by Katherine Oktober Matthews (in English)