Les Cimitieres Allemands de la grande guerre

Opening Date: 2002-Mar-22
Closing Date: 2002-Jun-02
I am interested in issues surrounding the ideology of national memory as a means of formulating a critique of the construct of 'nation' and 'national values'. I had developed the rationale for this work out of Freud's concept of nachtraglikheit (deferred action memory) and Walter Benjamin's assertion of Freudian 'death drive' in relation to the trauma of loss of place. Issues of shock as 'rationalism' discussed subsequently by Ernst Junger (and others), reinforced interests in site photography as a historical allegory representative of the ideology of nation and empire. The 'Historial' museum in Peronne, N. France, which is dedicated to images etc. of WW1, offered to show my photographs of First War German cemeteries. These photographs explored the contradictions of victory and defeat in terms of 'sites' of remembrance. The photographs were made on an architectural camera to give great detail, including the names of the fallen.