Monday, August 3, 2009

Nachklang (Part 1)






I am now back in Georgia, and started working on a series which attempts the highlight the situation as it represents itself to me now, on the first anniversary of the war between Russia and Georgia.

When I have been visiting and reporting on the situation in Georgia a year ago - in August 2008 - when the war was at its height, I was focusing on the situation of internally displaced people (IDPs) during that time. In a sense I am still doing that this time (I have been revisiting two of the camps for IDPs today – but more of that in a later blog).

However, this time, I will be working on a series, which I will call “Nachklang” and will have to some extent a slightly different approach as the traditional photojournalistic approach. I am revisiting the places that I have been photographing a year ago; and through a series of decidedly allegorical and metaphorical composites I am trying to describe the current situation in Georgia: a country still marred by the repercussions and after-effects of the war, a country more than ever torn between denied access to the west and a territorial integrity in tatters, and its people being left with a broken democracy.

My concept is to create composites consisting of one image taken in August 2008 and one image taken now at the same location, not in order to create one “seamless” composite image but one that is clearly and visibly a combined image, the photographic equivalent of a Brecht epic theatre piece, a disturbance to the viewer.

I hope that the result will be a different take on a well covered subject but at the same time a meaningful contribution to the current discussion.