Everytime I visit The Future of the Past, I find myself at a crossroads: should I (voluntarily) tumble down what seems like an abyss or trace a path that would lead to a seemingly comfortable, perhaps ignorant, place? The arresting nature of the moment(s) does nothing to erode the inquiries of the past. The lapse of time seems to have not infused any certitude into my search and the purpose of the eventual, if any, discoveries continues to be out of focus. Will I even discover something? Or am I walking in circles, to return to the state and point of commencement? Am I desperate for a discovery? Rather, the discovery? Or do I need to manually re-align my camera dial, focusing on minute, maybe ephemeral, details along the way; continuing to remain hopeful for an eventual catharsis?
I have often wondered, and more often been asked, what I want to achieve by this ‘project’. At times, mostly in the presence of another, the response is a rehearsed, carefully worded and seemingly ‘deep’ set of statements meant to satisfy the listener as well the speaker. However, mostly when alone, I’m vertiginously cropped out of the rehearsed façade: questioning why I began this journey in the first place. Am I trying to fill a void left by the abrupt end of what seemed like a lifestyle? And why did I choose photography as a means of expression? What am I trying to get at?
My first attempt at a resolution of these inquiries was by recollection and (re)imagination. I tried recollecting everything, to the minutest detail possible. I wrote, searched, discussed, thought, and travelled. I tried being alone with myself, the constant flow of bodies, thoughts and ideas around me receding to the background. I arrived at something: a structure, the imitation of a room, a skeletal one at that. I populated that space with images which tried to (re)imagine the past. By the time of its viewing though, the structure had to be taken down. Only the images remained. It was almost as if the images were now in a vacuum: the strands which bound them having unraveled due to situational exigencies.
The unravelling, although disorienting at the time, led to a realization. That it was the physical space which required a deeper investigation. It was my relationship with that physical space which required attending to, not just the events that unfolded there. The physical space in question here is a house. The house I grew up in. Where the events in question occurred. The events of which I had made images, manipulating light, detail and possibly, time. The house has had its own history of transformation as have (most of) its inhabitants, past and present. And when I try recalling my time in that house, in addition to the memory of the events, I am also reminded of the spaces in which those events unfolded: a corner, a bed, a closet, a wall, its colour. I cannot seem to recall anything without the house as a background. Brian Dillon writes:
“What do I recall when I think of a house in which I’ve lived? More than anything, a sense of what it felt like to move in about that medium. I remember the quality of light in a bedroom at dawn; the sudden acoustic shift that occurred when I opened a bathroom door…
In the house of our memory, we’re always present, feeling our way around a physicality we know as well as our own bodies.”
My visits to the house have almost always been preceded by mind-numbing anxiety. Not because of the near-permanent tenancy of the events in my memory, but because of the fear of a possible regression into what I used to be when I stayed here. Earlier, I would try avoiding that possibility by ensuring brief visits: an onset of anxiety would soon be overtaken by the thrill of departure. As Dillon writes:
“I need to keep moving, to avoid getting tangled in the threads of an unnecessary and lethargic recollection. On no account am I to let my body be caught in attitudes inherited from the life I had led here, or feel myself repeating the gestures of the past…”
My arrival at this house this summer, and a prolonged residence seems to have turned my relationship with this place on its head. Another exigency, another event, another introspection. Time passed and I found myself in a state and place that were far cries from any situation(s) of the past. Anxiety gradually gave way to (some version of) responsibility and eventually, agency. I found myself in charge of things, somehow vested with the power to control and possibly dictate how the house is to function; this sudden change was often overwhelming but seldom overpowering. In A Matter of Weeks, an expected yet debilitating grief also made its way into the house and for a while eclipsed everything and everyone.
At the beginning of this summer, I was not in the company of my camera. Its absence however did not register itself as an oddity. I was hardly stung with an impulse to frame, compose or capture. The anticipation of effort might have deflated the desire to strive towards any form of excellence in an already overburdened and saturated atmosphere. However, I found myself in the company of text: it seemed to satisfy the impulse to identify, find resonances and possibly reflect, as opposed to creating something after sifting through frames through a viewfinder. But I guess it was only a while before I wanted an aid to frame my vision, to return to a way of seeing that I had grown accustomed to.
I resumed making images. I did not begin with a pre-conceived objective of a ‘project’. I only knew that I wanted to explore this space; familiarize myself with its nooks, step out of those corners which had so far pulled me into their depths possibly colouring my relationship with this place. Unlike Home, I did not want to embark upon a path of reconstruction. I simply wanted to capture a fleeting moment, a spot of light. In this sense, I depart from Dillon’s motivations behind collecting images of his home. He writes:
“I am accumulating images, but keeping my distance from the depths of these rooms, as if the nothingness at their centres might swallow me whole, drag me back into the memories I have finally left behind.”
I have lived in those depths, I have felt that nothingness and I have certainly been swallowed by its memories. I have been dragged into an abyss countless times to becoming familiar with its enveloping darkness, at times finding comfort in that space. In searching for spots of light, I am perhaps reaching out to them; telling myself that I might descend to a darker place in this process but there is a crevice somewhere and as long as I can capture it, it is real. Maybe that spot of light will fall on me someday.
References
In The Dark Room, Brian Dillon, 4th edn., Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2017
Originally published in 2005, In The Dark Room explores the question of how memory works emotionally and culturally. In his narration, Dillon describes memory as a ‘sort of space, in which are piled up…all manner of essential objects’. He places these objects in five chapters called ‘House’, ‘Things’, ‘Photographs’, ‘Bodies’ and ‘Places’. In the piece above, I draw from ‘House’: finding some spots of resonances in Dillon’s narration.
The House I Grew Up In, Ashwini Ailawadi (ed.), The Rahi Testimonies, 2005
‘The House…’ is an account of the experiences of five Indian women with childhood incest and its impact on their lives originally published by the RAHI Foundation in 1999. In the piece above, I have used the title of this book (in the fourth paragraph) to refer to the house I grew up in.
A note: The links in the post (The Future of the Past, Home and A Matter of Weeks) will guide you to those respective blog posts. A combined reading will probably help you better navigate the piece above.
Comments