'The name comes from
the title of a book by Arthur C. Clarke, but also a piece of text from a poem
by Alfred Edward Housman, which speaks about the passage of time where the poet
asks if anything we create can be immune and saved from the passage of time or
oblivion?...
I examine what memory
of individuals, families, missing persons actually is ... After a person
disappears, can the image of that person be sustained through something they
left behind, or is it constantly changing as time passes, what happens? Do we
idolize that person? Is it possible to preserve memories through art? Does art
help or support an illusion we created anew, or is that actually the entire
point - to create the image that we want to see?' (The sentences on the
drawings represent parts of text from my family’s old documents in the function
of creating new seeing.)
The works are also
based on the J. Bergers book Ways of Seeing, especially chapter 1 where Berger
starts by trying to explain the relationship between words and what we see. He
points out that seeing and recognition come before words. It is seeing that
establishes our place in the world, but we use words to explain this world.
Despite this he argues there is always a distinction between what we see and
what we know. Having established that we see first and then use words to
explain the world, i.e. what we know, he then goes on to say what we know or
believe affects the way we see things. This makes it a dynamic relationship; it
may start with seeing and recognition, but develops into a system in which our
past experience or knowledge changes the way we see things.
'Naziv ciklusa dolazi od naslova knjige Artura C.Clarka, ali ujedno je i dio teksta iz pjesme Alfreda Edwarda Housmana, koja govori o prolasku vremena pri čemu se pjesnik pita može li išta što stvorimo ili
činimo ostati imuno i spasiti se od samog prolaska vremena, odnosno zaborava?...
Preispitujem što je zapravo sjećanje na pojedinca, obitelj, osobu koja nestane... Može li se putem nečega što ostane za nekom osobom nakon što ona nestane održati slika o njoj ili se zapravo konstantno mijenja kako vrijeme prolazi; što se događa? Idealiziramo li ju? Može li se putem umjetnosti očuvati sjećanje? Pomaže li tu umjetnost ili podupire neku iluziju koju iznova stvaramo, ili je to zapravo cijela poanta - da stvorimo sliku kakvu želimo vidjeti? ...'