51 x 49 x 37,23 x 15 x 11
2000
Steel, glass and, felt
20 x 19 5/16 x 14 5/8 x 5 7/8 x 4 5/16 in. (51 x 49 x 37 x 15 x 11 cm)
2000
Steel, glass and, felt
20 x 19 5/16 x 14 5/8 x 5 7/8 x 4 5/16 in. (51 x 49 x 37 x 15 x 11 cm)
Photo: Steve White
Balka’s work deals with both personal and collective memories, especially as they relate to his Catholic upbringing and the collective experience of Poland's fractured history. Through this investigation of domestic memories and public catastrophe, Balka explores how subjective traumas are translated into collective histories and vice versa. His materials are simple, everyday objects and things, but also powerfully resonant of ritual, with hidden memories and history.
This concept is also found in my work as i remember it..., as I deal with the memories of childhood traumas, re-enacted moments with symbolic meaning to expand on "memory work" and the tracing of identity.
Historically, personal pictures are deeply unreliable, but it is in this very unreliability that their interest lies. In making an effort to reread private pictures, there has been a move to revalue the undervalued and to bring into public discourse meanings, which have been concealed in the most secret parts of the private sphere. Photographers and curators (Jo Spence, Val Williams and Marianne Hirsch) are concerned to read history through autobiography. (Liz Wells, 123)
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