“Postmemory is a powerful and very particular form of memory precisely because its connection to its object or source is mediated not through recollection, but through an imaginative investment.”
Hirsch, M. Family Frames: Photography, Narrative and Postmemory (2012) CreateSpace
Independent Publishing. Pg 22.
The concept of ‘Photomemory’ was first coined by Marrianne Hirsch in an article in Art Spiegelman’s Maus in the early 1990s.
Hirsch says: “Postmemory” describes the relationship that the “generation after” bears to the personal, collective, and cultural trauma of those who came before-to experiences they “remember” only by means of the stories, images, and behaviours among which they grew up.”
(Hirsch and Harvard University Press)
Theory very apt for the time we are living through, how will those who come after ‘remember’ the COVID Pandemic of 20/21?
Hirsch advocates that people will ‘remember’ an event through a photograph even if they weren’t even there. This like a transference of memory from family members, where an image triggers a graphic story or description that is remembered by a younger generation who that memory forward.
“Postmemory characterises the experience of those who grew up
Hirsch. M, Family Frames: Photography, Narrative and Postmemory (2012) CreateSpace
dominated by particular narratives that have preceded their own birth
and therefore in that sense, they are memories that can be described
as having been ‘passed down a generation.”
Independent Publishing. Pg 22.
The present pandemic has had a traumatic effect on many people, much like surviving a disaster movie. Therefore, it is likely that those that come after us will gain a ‘memory’ of this time from the images and stories we tell over the coming years.
