The Memory of History

(2012-13)

A nation is a community of individuals united by a collective sense of the past, but the European Union is a community united by a collective amnesia.

As a necessity of collective harmony, countries joining the EU have traded their difficult memories of past rivalries, conflicts, and bloodshed in return for peace and prosperity. But as the good times come to an end, the past starts to return.

Made across ten countries during the height of the European debt crisis, at a point where the European Union appeared dangerously close to fracturing apart, The Memory of History explores the use and abuse of the past in the context of recession. Through a mixture of overt references and chance juxtapositions, these photographs allude to histories returning both as weaponised political narratives, but also more spectrally haunting a continent which had once thought it had left them behind, and yet cannot seem to fully forget them.

Rejecting a fixed narrative structure, The Memory of History is housed in a box shaped like a book, containing fifty-six prints alongside an experimental essay, The History of Memory, composed of twelve short texts chapters on perceptions of history, memory and time. Images and text are designed to mix freely, resulting in a unique viewing experience every time the box is opened as new connections form. This emulates the way the past reconstitutes itself differently each time we attempt to return to it, echoing the constructed nature of the thing that we call ‘history’.

The Memory of History comprises:
= 70 photographs
= The History of Memory, 5000 word non-linear essay on the practice of history
= Bespoke box containing the prints and essay
= Ephemera from the making of the project.

View The Memory of History box

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