Installation view of the project Tracing the Aftermath (Tracing Entities - Aftermath of War) exhibited at the group show Zeitgeist at the Robert Capa Center of Photography in Budapest, Sept. 2019 with Parallel Photo Platform.
The work Tracing the Aftermath is a collection of different segments from a greater ongoing body of work. The project investigates the role of memory in relation to traumatic memories along with how trauma affects the body and the mind and how these can be healed and treated. The project explores the identity and personal narrative of people living with PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) from conflict and war through the use of personal archives and visualizations of: personal stories, collective responses to trauma and of the psychological complications that people who have been exposed to traumatic events are faced with, and the issues they are encountering on their return back home. In relation to this, the work wants to explore how photography can be used as a tool to visualize the non-visible and non-verbalized woven together by the personal narratives of the subjects and abstractions created by the artist. Through different photographic and visual strategies, the project creates a constant shift between figuration and abstraction.
Furthermore, through the visualizing of contemporary post-war problematics, the project wants to explore how trauma is not just a traumatic memory that took place in the past, but how trauma can manifest itself as part of the present. It is an imprint left by an experience on both the mind and body. Much like a photograph is an impression made by light in the split-of-a-second on the photographic negative or paper. The use of abstract and alternative processes assists the visualization of something that is otherwise hidden from the eye - hidden in both the past and the present.
The goal of the project is to create a body of work that is both intimate, powerful and engaging. Most importantly the project doesn’t want to provide any answers to the questions that it is raising, but instead, the work should be a starting point for conversation and debate.
Additionally, Tracing the Aftermath explores the boundaries of photography and what is possible to visualize through the photographic medium and different photographic processes. This investigation started at the Royal College of Art and concurrently during mentorship with Parallel Photo Platform both in 2018, and it is still ongoing.