THE CANNED MEMORY
In the origins of this Project we found the need to rescue a part of our history and our patrimony. It is exactly in that spot where our path as a modern and industrial society begins. Reviving it through the viewfinder of a photographic camera seemed to me the perfect way for various reasons.
In the first place, photographing these beautiful factories involves a shift in time to the come-backs of the photographic history. The use of the camera in order to create an archive, the election of a topic dealing with architecture, the exploration and the changes which took place in the area and the use of an image as the technology which will allow us to have a paused vision of “reality”, are questions which are inherent to the photographic medium from its beginnings.
In the second place, it is also true that the invention of photography and the birth of the hermetic fish conservation method are practically contemporaries. The parallelisms do not end here; in both cases we do obtain manufacture-derived products, devised to prolong their average-life. We could finally come to define photography as a way of preserving people, spaces, moments; it is a sort of canned memory, even more when I think of those brass containers in which the old family pictures used to be kept.
Therefore, I present a Project which tries to go further than what is simply captured by the camera. It extends beyond the creation of a mere archive. It is a reflection on those changes experienced by a society and a territory. It tries to give these buildings back, for an instance, the importance that they once had from a clear and respectful standpoint. It is a way of not forgetting, a way of preserving the memory.
In the first place, photographing these beautiful factories involves a shift in time to the come-backs of the photographic history. The use of the camera in order to create an archive, the election of a topic dealing with architecture, the exploration and the changes which took place in the area and the use of an image as the technology which will allow us to have a paused vision of “reality”, are questions which are inherent to the photographic medium from its beginnings.
In the second place, it is also true that the invention of photography and the birth of the hermetic fish conservation method are practically contemporaries. The parallelisms do not end here; in both cases we do obtain manufacture-derived products, devised to prolong their average-life. We could finally come to define photography as a way of preserving people, spaces, moments; it is a sort of canned memory, even more when I think of those brass containers in which the old family pictures used to be kept.
Therefore, I present a Project which tries to go further than what is simply captured by the camera. It extends beyond the creation of a mere archive. It is a reflection on those changes experienced by a society and a territory. It tries to give these buildings back, for an instance, the importance that they once had from a clear and respectful standpoint. It is a way of not forgetting, a way of preserving the memory.
Jose Chas
"Conservar a Memoria"
2011 © Chas - All Rights Reserved.
ISBN: 978-84-87882-38-8 - Ilustrations in colour, 64 pages - Size: 11 x 15 cm. Softcover - Price: 9€
