Photography constructs memory and our sense of identity. We experience events in real time. In photographs we alternate reality in fictional scenarios. Past returns moments caught on camera to recreate the experienced nostalgic longing for the past and difficulty maintaining elusive memories.
Guggenheim's "Haunted" exhibition explores themes of memory, trauma and return to the past
What I remember from the exhibition most vividly, is the photo of the girl by Gillian Wearing - Self-Portrait at Three Years Old (2004). "Confronting the viewer with her adult gaze through the eyeholes of the toddler’s mask, Wearing plays on the rift between interior and exterior, and raises a multitude of provocative questions about identity, memory, and the veracity of the photographic medium."
The purpose of a mask is to send the viewer back to a time before our experiences shaped who we are. In a sense, a person wears their life on their face, and the mask has the ability to conceal that life.
