This residency is making me think about images, specifically photographic images. Of course, I think about images a lot, but not necessarily about photos. Soon, I'm going to try to read with you what Rancière has to say about incommensurability. Before that though, I wanted to show you this image. I found it amongst some family documents. I don't know where it was taken and I've only got a slightly out of focus digital photo of the photo itself. It looks to be an office and the date on the wall tells us it was taken on the 6th of the month (if that is a calendar). Two of the men in the scene are looking towards the camera, the other is busy with his work. I feel they must be accountants but of course their work might be anything. There appear to be murals painted on the wall of trees and a landscape with a horizon. It's a very beautiful room with high arched ceiling and a stone floor. I suppose the man on the left who is looking straight at us might be my Grandfather as a young man but I don't know because I only know my Grandfather from photos of him as a much older man.
The story goes that he, his sister and his mother turned up in Syria with only a suitcase and without his father. They were probably Armenians and fled the Turkish genocide at the beginning of the last century. I don't know for sure, so much is hazy with uncertainty.
I'm bringing these old photos into this blog almost despite myself. I keep wondering what on earth they have to do with anything. But of course there is a link with the residency: photos as witnesses, calling us to account.
