Observing Memories Issue 3 | Page 56

OVERVIEW
The art project as a
tool for reflection on
historical memory and
genocide
Montse Morcate
PhD, artist, researcher and
lecturer of photography at
the Faculty of Fine Arts of the
University of Barcelona
T
he contemporary photographic art project has incontrovertible value as a tool for
transmitting and reflecting on historical memory and genocide. In this respect,
teaching in the field of arts and art practices can create contexts for discussing
and reflecting on a diverse range of aspects from various perspectives. These include the
mechanisms that allow the complexity of individual, collective and historical memory to be
transmitted, as well as the role of image as a mediator, as both a work of artistic expression
and the document of a historical event. With this in mind, the paper aims to provide a
brief overview of different art projects that not only review and reflect on the historical
event they portray or allude to, but also question the role of documentary photography
as a hegemonic resource for bearing witness to, recovering or reconstructing historical
memory itself. Moreover, the paper examines other aspects of image as a medium that
challenge the capacity of photojournalism to generate a reaction and raise awareness of
tragic events in the present. In this respect, photographic art projects offer an infinite
spectrum of visual content in which the image used is created, appropriated or transformed
within its numerous contexts, including family or home photography, staging or simply the
evocation of the image itself. The objective of these practices is not simply to be creative
and experiment with the visual; rather, they aim to offer cross-disciplinary perspectives
that make extremely complex and sensitive issues approachable in such a way that they
expand and question the limitations of photography within the framework of documentary,
photojournalistic or archival practice.
Many contemporary artists have directly addressed or alluded to the Holocaust, the
diaspora and the survival of the Jews. Key examples include the work of Christian Boltanski
and his archival perspective with installations such as La Réserve des Suisses morts (1990)
(The Reserve of Dead Swiss), in which photographs appropriated from obituaries in a
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Observing Memories

ISSUE 3