Marianne Hirsch’s essay Projected Memory: Holocaust Photographs exposed a concept that was particularly interesting to me which was that of ‘postmemory’. She explains how especially camera images can capture an essence and become very ‘familiar and iconic’. Postmemory is this terms that she uses to describe when you remember an experience that maybe never actually happened to you when seeing a photograph. But it is not just is a level of remembering a certain even it is about linking it to your own experiences and maybe relating to it and to the people in the picture because in a sense you feel that you could be that person in the photograph. She mentions that sometimes these images can become so important in your life that you construct your own memories around it and in a sense they become part of you and something you experienced as well.
With the recent earthquakes in Chile and Japan I saw many pictures that made a great impact in my life and that really made me understand the point that Hirsch was explaining through postmemory. Ecuador is another country that is also on top of the Ring of Fire of the pacific, meaning that like those countries that suffered those terrible earthquakes we are too in the zone with most seismic risk in the world. We have had tragedies in the past because of this, which inevitably brought with it the eruption of several volcanoes as well. When I hear the news about the earthquakes especially the one in Chile (because it is so close), it was really shocking because it could have easily been us. When I see the faces of the people who suffered and lost everything I think about how it could have been here in Ecuador. So even though I have not lived through an earthquake I can easily sympathize with the victims of these earthquakes because it has happened here before and there is a great chance that it could happen in the future.
Your post caught my eye when I saw the Ring of Fire. At DCCC I took a geology class and they talked about how and why the ring of fire is what it is. It was very facinating to learn about. Good work on your postmemory post and tying it into a Ring of Fire disaster.
ReplyDeleteGood post. I think I have seen a bunch of these types of photos of someone looking at the remains of their house or another and it is just so sad. But is it true how you say that we can see a photo like this and it cant automatically send us to another image similar to that one. I thought of the tsunami in Haiti at first, but then hurricane Katrina, and then other earthquakes or natural disasters came to mind. This picture in particular really makes you think of the many disasters that occur in our world. Good post again!!
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I really enjoyed Hirsch's essay on this topic. The idea of postmemory is very intriguing to me. The ring of fire you referred to also got me thinking. Just as I thought when I read Hirsch's essay, perhaps we can relate to natural or man-made disasters better if they occur within our race or location. Awesome post, that got me thinking
ReplyDeletethank you all :) I also found it something very intriguing that I think we do it subconsciously all the time in our heads. Because we construct our thoughts from images, I think that is why we are able to connect everything and relate with them. As you say Alexa, you see something that reminds you of this, and that one to another, and to something that happened to this girl you know, and so on.
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