Of Memory and Metaphor

Chris Hewitson

Of Memory and Metaphor Work in Progress Portfolio Informing Contexts (PHO720) April 2022

Contents •Page 2:

Artist statement (incorporating statement of intent)

•Section one: Memory and Photographic memory often do not coincide •Pages 3 – 9

Family photographs and appropriated internet images

•Section two: How different experiences can collide in our memory •Pages 10 – 13

Re-photography and blended images

•Section three: The photograph as metaphor for the mind and the memories contained with it •Pages 14 - 19 •Page 20

Contemplations within the tunnel de Ribaute ‘Of Memory and Metaphor’ display sequence

Chris Hewitson Statement For the work in this portfolio, I have drawn upon personal experience together with experimentation, analysis of research findings, and collaboration with others, to reflect on how memory is not static but changes over time.

The work is presented in three sections: I use family archive and appropriated internet material to show how memory and related photographic record often do not coincide; re-photography and blended images to characterise how different experiences can fold into and overlap each other in our memory; and new photographs to propose the role of photographs as a metaphor for the mind as the repository of memories.

My initial interest was in the folk memory that has grown around the tramway that ran from 1902 until 1932 in the Aude Departement of France and where ‘remnants’ remain visible in the landscape. As I scoped my project, I re-photographed several sites that appeared in postcards of the tramway and combining these with the originals I created images that brought 1922 and 2022 within the same frame.

I canvassed the views of a group of local people about these blended images and was intrigued by the intensity of their responses. One person ardently believed I had torn the fabric of the universe, interrupting time itself. It was hard work trying to explain that these images had been created on a computer.

Further discussion with members of the local community led me to consider the old transport network as a metaphor for memory. This idea, combined with my interviewee’s perception that blended pictures somehow warp time, led me to consider how these pictures reflect my

Artist own experience of memory: today, moments of distraction are more noticeable while mental powers appear undiminished.

Numerous family photographs remind me more of events ‘out of the frame’ than of what is shown in the picture, so this portfolio includes four examples of these. I am also aware of that phenomenon of memory, where recollection of a headline will immediately suggest an image of what I was doing when I first heard the news rather than a remembrance of the story itself. I use three images from the internet to illustrate this facet of memory.

Conducting field research, I located a tunnel, built for the tramway in 1904 to lessen the curvature of a hairpin bend. Now it is slowly returning to nature, and I was enchanted by the tunnel’s ethereal light, its separateness from the world outside and the eerie appearance of its cracked mud floor and stone-lined walls. As I photographed

inside and around it, I began to conceive of the tunnel as representing the mind, so I conclude the portfolio with six tunnel photographs as metaphors for different features of mind and memory.

I have come to appreciate that the key engines of my current practice are investigation and experimentation for which the Informing Contexts module has provided resources, time, space, and opportunities to expand ideas through which I am developing my ‘photographic voice’ and creative awareness.

496 words

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Memory: Bringing in the herring

Chris Hewitson and Mary Ratcliffe, Bridlington UK, Photobooth image, 1959

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Memory: Assassination of JF Kennedy, 23 November, 1963

Image appropriated from the internet, origin unknown.

4

Memory: Moonlanding, 20th July 1969

Image: ‘First flight of SpaceShipOne’. Richard Seaman, 2004

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Memory: the dog in the night-time

Image: Chris Hewitson and Sandro Morga, Salles Adour, Hautes Pyrénées (France), Marie-José Sanmartin, 1977

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Memory: Mistaken Identity

University of East London degree ceremony, The Barbican Hall, London UK, Michael Poynor, 1996

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Memory: Banana Boat Song

Mr & Mrs TV Douglas 5 th wedding anniversary celebrations, Volendam, The Netherlands, ‘Volendam – 120’, 1980

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Memory: 9/11

Man on station platform using mobile phone, image appropriated from internet, origin unknown

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10 Fabrezan, Aude (France), site of the former station of the Tramways à Vapeur de l’Aude, c 1910, original postcard re-photographed and blended by Chris Hewitson, 2022

11 La Halte (request stop), of Tramways à Vapeur de l’Aude at St Laurent de la Cabrerisse, Aude (France), postcard c 1910, re-photographed by Chris Hewitson and blended by Paul Williams, December 2021

12 Steam tram on Promenade Paul Valéry, Port La Nouvelle, Aude (France) c 1910, re-photographed and blended by Chris Hewitson, January 2022

13 Steam tram in central Sigean. Aude (France) from postcard c 1910 and site rephotographed by Chris Hewitson and blended by Paul Williams, January 2022

14 Threshold, Le Tunnel de Ribaute, Aude (France). Chris Hewitson, February 2022

15 Construction, le Tunnel de Ribaute, Aude (France). Chris Hewitson, February 2022

16 Outlook, le Tunnel de Ribaute, Aude (France). Chris Hewitson, April 2022

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Recesses, le Tunnel de Ribaute, Aude (France). Chris Hewitson, February 2022

18 Enlightenment, le Tunnel de Ribaute , Aude (France). Chris Hewitson, February 2022

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Discernment, le Tunnel de Ribaute, Aude (France). Chris Hewitson, February 2022

‘Of memory and Metaphor’ display sequence

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