Theme: Work with family memory
Barbora Geržová: In the photographic cycle And She Said but She Was Looking which was
your diploma work you work with the family history, with personal remembrances of your
past. You create images which at first sight, also because you use the medium of photograph,
give impression as being authentic, even though they are a subjective reconstruction of
memories of you, of your mother and your great-grandmother. You connect two worlds of
memories; on one hand is that, which originates in reality (for example, the house of your
great-grandparents); on the other hand, you depict situations and images, which are
a reconstruction of your memories and are connected rather to your visions and desires, which
gets reflected in the imaginary level of your photographs. To what extend are the phenomena
like family history, memories of the past connected with autobiographical elements and the
seeking after your own identity and to what extend are your memories connected rather to
desires and visions? Memory and especially family memory you work with, is a theme
reflected by a part of the feminist theory. Do you think that your work can be read in the
context of feminism?
Petra Malá: My work, the work I'm exhibiting at your gallery, is concerned with three
generations of women. The absence of men in my photographs is also part of this work.
Freud's idea of Screen Memories is very interesting to me and worth noting when we
consider the relationship between photographs and memory. Freud proposed that visual
images are formed when we recollect childhood experiences. Further, he suggested that
these images are not pictures of reality as such but rather, they are distortions or
"screens" that allow us to displace reality--what actually happened. His idea is that a
person's desires and internal conflicts ultimately and necessarily distort memory. Truth
lurks beyond the screen. Uncovering this core truth became a central goal of
psychoanalysis. In other words, psychoanalysis in it initial phase sought to strip away
this screen, this mirage of desire in order to reveal an underlying truth.
I agree with Freud to the extent that this screen exists, that we form images of our past
through a process of recollection. This is rooted in my experience. However, it's more
difficult to accept Freud's assertion that beyond or behind this screen exists an
immutable truth and that it can be salvaged as a whole, pure and unchanged by the act
of unveiling.
I like to think of these distortions and the changes to the images of historical actuality
wrought by analysis as projections or memory-images. Layer upon layer, uncovering the
strata of the past is akin to an excavation, a process that involves both a stripping away
and a building upon. The closer I get to the truth the further away the actuality of the
past becomes. This is paradoxical. Each layer I uncover reveals a new image or
projection. Each memory-image is built up from what is actually there and from what is
forever missing. Loss and absence become palpable; I feel loss within myself. Absence
and loss are projected as a desire to retrieve the unrecoverable. It's a fluid and
somewhat speculative process. My adult self works to uncover earlier childhood
experience; the outcome involves re-imagining the past through the present.
The photographs I produce arise from embodied experiences and methods. Theory is
neither my starting point nor my goal. Rather, my photographs begin their journey to
completion by weaving together various loose threads from memory, my own, my
mother’s and my Great-grandmother’s. Three women. Three generations of memory
and reveries from the past are embodied within me, there they mingle and dance then
are transmitted through photographs. I trust myself in that what I look at and how I see
things will cohere into resonantly true impressions without making the claim that they
are in fact absolutely true.
So, to answer your question, whether it's possible to read my work through Feminism,
yes, of course it is. My work intersects with feminist theory in many ways: the gaze,
gender, the body, the family, motherhood, private life and the domestic sphere and so
on. These categories are frames through which one may understand what I am doing.
But it's not the only way.
For example, my work is partly grounded in the tradition of humanistic documentary.
You know, story telling and recording of the disenfranchised and the misrepresented;
casting light onto our cultures’ blind spots. Some of my teachers did this. But I was
uncomfortable with documentary’s universalizing, genderless and transcendent
ambitions. While I am not a documentary photographer, the question of authenticity
and historical actuality, the relationships between lyrical and factual depiction
nevertheless infuse what I do and underlie the narratives I construct. Remembering,
forgetting, reflecting and projecting are all at play in what I do.
B. G.: Do you think that if a female artist uses in her work themes connected with family,
relationship, motherhood, corporeity, sexuality, identity or memory, which are reflected also
by the feminist theory, then her work automatically must be read also from the viewpoint of
feminism? Or can we read them thus only on condition that the authoress works with the
above stated themes deliberately or even critically? Does it mean that if she works with them
unknowingly, intuitively, we cannot interpret them in the context of feminism? If not, then in
which context should they be read?
P. M: Like a porous fabric, feminist theory may be used to filter, to interpret, to
understand and to question anything. I like work that allows for multiple viewpoints to
enter; work that generates discussion or strong emotions; work that exceeds categories
of knowing while allowing for them.
B. G.: From the beginning, the notion of feminism, feminist art, which begin to emerge in our
milieu after 1989, have aroused rather negative reactions, including the attitudes of the
authoresses themselves who were placed into this context because of their work or its part.
Negative associations connected to these notions are evident even in the present. Do you think
that this is also because the feminist theory singled the art made by women out of the general
context of art, which brought both positives and negatives? On one hand, the position of a
female artist got strengthened but, on the other hand, it could also bring about certain
isolation, creation of an image, as if women defined themselves negatively against the rest of
the male world? Do you think it was this which caused that many female artists did not want
to be directed connected with the notion of feminism? What is your attitude towards feminism?
P. M: As an emancipatory and political project, Feminism is an important discourse
within our post-communist and globalized society. A politics that positions women and
men as equal participants in our economy, that questions representations of women’s
(and men’s) bodies is a politics that helps create an ethically just society. Feminism
opens our eyes. What was once private and the sphere of women can now be made
visible and public. Universal truths supported by traditional gendered dichotomies like
culture and nature, are subjected to revision. The cultural construction of femininity
and masculinity too has been revised. Thanks to an earlier generation of women artists
and writers in the Czech Republic who led the way with politicized and critical works,
younger artists today have a larger platform to speak from. This is very positive. It
creates the conditions for many more voices to enter the public sphere.
B. G.: These days the notion of gender art is more often used, which may include production
of both men and women who reflect the issues of gender. Do you think that the introduction
of this notion wipes off the potential superiority of either of the genders, and that is why it is a
notion which is in the context of art also more suitable than feminism?
P. M: The concept of gender does not replace Feminism. After all, gender studies came
about partly through the questions asked within feminist discourse--by Judith Butler,
for example. Reading art and social differences through the interdisciplinary optics of
gender, sexuality, class, race, ethnicity, place and so on is useful.