top of page

The Future of the Past

Writer's picture: Akash JoshiAkash Joshi

Updated: Aug 27, 2021

The process of recalling the past poses certain fundamental questions - how does one represent the events of the past in the present? More importantly, how does one represent the effect(s) the past has had on an individual, in the present, when the events of the past have no record? What has been the future of the past?


An attempt in answering these questions has led me to furiously dig into my own past. But the first obstacle in this endeavour is the past itself. What am I digging into? Memories? Objects? Spaces? People? Which aspect of the past, when excavated, truly embodies what I’m looking for? And what am I looking for? Closure? Order? Simplicity? The last question might not find an answer in an eternity, but that is not something I seek in this ‘project’.


To shrug off the vagueness, here is some context: for the duration I was in school (fourth to twelfth standard), I was in some sort of a ‘relationship’ with another ‘older’ man. It began with a gentle touch till it crossed certain boundaries of consent and craving. The period during and thereafter was rife with guilt, shame and grief but also, at the same time, with lust, craving and desire (to be followed by guilt, shame and grief again). As abruptly it began, so did it end and with its demise, I thought, those emotions will meet the same fate. But of course, they didn’t. They found their way out again, however, now in the form of words (on a blog), monologues (to friends and family) and more often than not, in action (dates/hookups/one night stands/whatever term one might assign).


But one thing still maintains a firm grasp: memory. A ‘photographic’ memory, if I may call it that. But not represented in photographs. Tangibly, there is a ‘before’ (old photographs from family albums) which serves to show one version of the past, and there is also an ‘after’, but the spaces in between and another version of the past (my version) remain unaccounted for. The ‘event’ is absent. An insight from Eyal and Ines Weizman's 'Before and After: Documenting the Architecture of Disaster' would be helpful here: “….absence of the event from representation might be seen as analogous to the effects of trauma on memory. Psychological trauma erases or represses precisely those events that were hardest for the subject to experience, and these gaps forever keep any recollection incomplete and indeterminate.” This is where I put my foot in the door. I want to fill this ‘gap’.


The protagonist(s) [swipe right]


Method


One of the main challenges in carrying out this ‘project’ was the dramatic transformation of the space(s) where the incidents occurred. If my objective was to indeed fill the ‘gap’ or bring forth my version of the past, I also needed to represent the past as it visually existed. However, I also realised that there was nothing that mandated an elaborate visual reconstruction exercise. My motive was to give the viewer a glimpse of what ran in my head, how I pictured those spaces versus how those spaces were visually represented in albums of the time.


Representation v. memory [swipe right]


In order to do that, I juxtaposed photographs (of those spaces) that already exist with newly shot photographs of those spaces in a manner that represent what I made (and continue to make) of them. Therefore, you see a noticeable difference in alternate photographs.


Representation v. memory [swipe right]


Inspiration


In September 2018, I attended the Indian Photography Festival where I had the opportunity of attending the artist talk of Sina Niemeyer, a German photographer. She was there to discuss a photo-book that she had recently published (titled “Für mich”; translates to ‘for me’). It is an autobiographical story of sexual abuse; the result of an attempt to come to terms with what had happened to her as a pre-adoloscent girl. You can read more about her work here: http://www.ceibaeditions.com/store/books/fur-mich/.



The spaces


Although similar in theme, I wish to steer away from her method by creating new photographs which attempt to represent the past and what has so far only been a memory relic.


An everyday affair


The Display

After several trips to the bamboo market and with huge assistance from friends, the events of the past and the effect(s) of that past on the future were sought to be depicted in the manner below. Although last minute emergency dictated the structure to not remain so, this is one fortunate memory relic from an immediate past.


The future of the past

 

This work was exhibited at 'A Night at 367', an event hosted by The Gnamma Collective, an alternative art collective in New Delhi, India.


The blog-entries of Home and Spots of Light try to take the endeavours made in the above exhibit further, by way of addressing the spaces in which the events of the above post occurred.



158 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All

A New Year

The moment I saw my reflection in the mirror running hands all over that snug fit of a red dress, I began fantasizing the course that...

Comments


bottom of page