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While researching the associations between photography, death and memory for my PhD in Fine Art Practice, I came across the cemeteries of Paris. These cemeteries contain juxtaposed sepulchres and graves stretching as far as the eye can see and appearing like shanty towns; cities of the dead which are surrounded by the city of the living; cities which are a place apart, linking the world of the living and the dead and inhabited by memories and ghosts. I resolved to return and take photographs in these cemeteries which I found related very much to the ideas I had about photography. The sepulchres contain artefacts which serve as memento mori, both beautiful and symbolic in their decay, much in the same way as a photograph does. Photography since its inception has been closely linked with death and memory and has often been used as a metaphor for both in much the same way as these artefacts are. Central to this is the hypothesis that photography has a close association with death and memory, and since its inception it has often been linked to, or used as a metaphor for, them both. This is at least in part due to its ability to portray that which no longer exists. Metaphor is frequently used in correlation with death, as it is often utilised to deal with that which we do not fully comprehend or which we cannot easily accept. All photographs become history from the moment they are taken. A photograph is an image which is about to become a memory; a capturing of the present in the instant that it becomes the past. Therefore, the fact that I am using photography to record these memento mori make them even more evocative and meaningful.
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Pam Berridge, October 2011 |
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