Erased

Inspired by Said’s notion of ‘struggle over geography’, 'Erased' is a body of work that relates to small tentative steps to retain a sense of control and the memory of a life, that of my mother’s, within a dispersed history and a fast-moving world.

LESLIE HAKIM-DOWEK / ABOUT ERASED

Italo Calvino claimed that life is an inventory of objects.

Erased  is a body of work comprising of several sub-series including Tikkun, Erased (as main title) and Index of Objects which focus on the significance of objects and ordering of memory. This work was borne out of an experience of loss and the many tentative steps that followed to retain some sense of control and the memory of a life, that of my mother's, within a fast-moving world.

In Tikkun, I attempted to heal what was never healed in her lifetime through multiple gestures of stitching, adjusting and repairing the many objects that hold the threads of her other worlds. However, this kabbalistic notion of healing/repairing the world also impinges on the process of grieving with all the irrational impulses that it might throw.

In our frantic mediatised world with its politics of quick oblivion, I do fear that not many will speak her name as our time is too hurried and stifled and very few will recount her (hi)story, an invisible history that has no monuments or books. In the absence of any future gaze, as forgetfulness will take hold, her shadows have vanished from the family snapshots in Erased. Thus, a double helix of erasure comes into play.

In Index of Objects, from her soundless home, I retrieved a long constellation of objects preserved from Tiberias, Beirut and London and crystallised them into images . They sometimes speak of aspirations and feminine allure but often, a sense of dread and unease seeps in. I thought of it as an archive that would speak of her path through the many displacements, from her starting point in 1925 in Tiberias, Palestine to London, United Kingdom. Perhaps, she held onto every thread, cracked comb or torn lace to be able to retell herself her long journey as an errant almost like leaving pebbles on a path, to be reminded of where she had been and what she had experienced. Her lifespan covered nearly a century with all the turmoil and conflicts of the Middle East.

Photography offered the possibility to crystallise these mini 'sites of memory' and its silence and stillness, the promise of visual intimacy and contemplation in a world that is just too frenetic, too prone to quick oblivion and that does not allow much space for grieving.

This project includes archival material, photography and multimedia.