MEMOIRE INVOLONTAIRE: The Essence of the Past
Limited Edition 20 + 2 AP Individually Numbered
Handmade Artist Book, Self-Published 2020
Memoire Involontaire: The Essence of the Past is designed by award-winning Heijdens Karwei Photography Book Design Agency Amsterdam at the Master Photobook Workshop, International Center of Photography NYC.
Format: width 6" x height 8" x depth 6.2”.
Softcover: 250 gsm Hiromi Izumi Paper.
Bookblock: 100 gsm Mohawk Everyday Digital Paper.
Fold-out pages (6): 110 gsm Hiromi Shiramine paper, width16” x height12”.
Swiss-sewn binding: 80 pages, 62 images.
Through the gaze of a man operating an 8mm film camera c1940 before my birth, I view adult family members and their friends interact with each other and children at holiday parties and on the beach in ways concerning, but familiar. In his novel ‘In Search of Lost Time’, Fr:’A la Recherche du Temps Perdu’ (1871-1922) , Marcel Proust called this recognition of the past in the present moment memoire involontaire. In frame-by-frame playback I select still frames from each of two one-hour reels to enhance and enlarge with digital painting, from approx. 1/5” x 2/15” to 15” x 21”. This dramatic enlargement of filmframes now still in isolation captures the uncanny, as ghosts in family history seemingly come to life and I tangibly interact with the past..