The project refers to the topic, which I have been exploring, of post-memory as a narrative passed on in communities and of conditions for inheriting traumas. In my work, I invoke the image of Princess Diana – a symbol of a perfect mother, a tireless volunteer, a model of femineity and elegance, who was killed in a car accident in 1997. At that time I was six years old and something broke. Now I’m thirty and I still can see that crack, which appeared undoubtedly due to the publicity of this tragedy in the media. This was the first mourning that was experienced internationally on a mass scale and in my opinion it has left a clear mark in our memories. Originally, I took the photograph using the technique of cyanotype on silk, which is created under the influence of the UV radiation and at the same time fades when exposed to sunlight. The negative image is a reference to the initial mark, the original, the basis for the existence of this view. At first glance, we do not distinguish individual features and after staring at the image for a longer time an afterimage is created – in this case a positive image. The technique of cyanotype that I used makes it possible to achieve a saturated blue colour, which denotes sadness and yearning in one of the approaches to Goethe’s theory of colours.
Kamila Kobierzyńska
Kamila Kobierzyńska – lives and works in Poznań. Since 2014 a member of the 2nd Atelier at the Faculty of Photography of the University of the Arts Poznan and has run the Atelier of Photography at the ZAMEK Culture Centre in Poznań. Studied Film and Television Recording at the Institute of Creative Photography, Silesian University of Opava, and Photography at the University of the Arts Poznan. Defended her doctoral dissertation: “When the cherries blossom. Post-memory and transmission of trauma” in March 2021. Her primary fields of interest are the notion of individual memory, prosthetic memory, post-memory and identity of generations.