Essay Question

In what way does Carole Benitah explore family archives through her work as a method of understanding identity and self expression?

Introduction Draft

“Photographs thus are not just manufactured memories, they are also expressions of our desire to hold on to something.” (Colberg, J, May 28, 2012) 

This extract from the thoughts of Jörg Colberg highlights the topics in which I will discuss in this essay; questioning also how Carole Benitah in particular, explores these past memories in attempt to gain a wider knowledge of her identity. This investigation of identity through archival images resonates with myself, as within this personal study I wish to revisit past memories of the senior generation in my family, in attempt to argue that these depictions often do not recount the whole truth of the past and are in fact a method of regaining control of our identity. Carolle Benitah is an archetype for reshaping the past through the manipulation and reworking of archival materials, due to her emotional attachment to the images and people within them. Furthermore, I am also choosing to look at Bentiah’s work in detail as a result of her multi-media methods she undertakes, in order to create her contemporary commentary of the idealistic family in contrast with reality, using stitching, gold leaf, ink drawings and beading to achieve this. This utilisation of mulit-medias by Benitah can be linked with my previous work throughout the course, such as my use of maps in digital collages for an identity project and recent experimentations with embroidery. I intend to respond to this unique style again, in regard to my personal study by producing reworked images of my family, that centre around my maternal grandparents and the life they have built, that have been both archived and recently captured. The style in which these new photographs will be created, will be mostly staged tableau pieces, with some candid images also. I will achieve this also by using multiple medias, similar to Benitah, such as stitching as well as digital collage.  

Paragraph 1

• 500 words
• Historical context of family photography and its development
• Photography in relation to memory and identity
• Link to contemporary art movement and influence from movements such as Dadaism

Paragraph 2

• 500 words
• Analysis of an image from Carolle Benitah’s photobook ‘Photo Souvenirs’ in relation to identity, self-expression and memory
• Explain the significance of the use of red stitching and beading in her work

Paragraph 3

• 500 words
• Analysis of an image from Carolle Benitah’s photo series ‘Jamais je ne t’oubliera’ (I Will Never Forget You) in comparison to the previous image, and in relation to to identity, self-expression and memory
• Explain the significance of the use of gold leaf in her work

Conclusion

• 500 words
• Link similarities between Carolle Bentiah and my own work
• Explain also how my work differs from Benitah

Literary Sources

Carolle Benitah

1. https://www.carolle-benitah.com/bio

• “I decided to explore the memory of childhood through my family photographs, because it allows me to understand who I am and to define my identity today.”
• “The past of a human being, unlike the remains of some ancient temple, is neither fixed nor reconstituted but finished by this”
• “It’s like an exorcism. I pierce the paper until I have no more evil.
•  “I transform my traces of the past.”
• “I’m building a fantasy album like a crossing of appearances where I enjoy demolish the myth of the ideal family to let emerge a more nuanced picture”
• “The past of a human being, unlike the remains of some ancient temple, is neither fixed nor reconstituted but finished by this”

2. https://lecube-art.com/artiste/carolle-benitah/?lang=en

I use the falsely decorative function of embroidery to create designs that break the images of happiness and deconstruct the myth of the ideal family.

Colberg, J (May 28, 2012) Photography and Memory
blogger on Conscientious

• “To look at a photograph is to look at the past”
• “photographs are more perfect memories, because we are given more power to control our past”
• “photographs are manufactured memories”
• “Photographs thus are not just manufactured memories, they are also expressions of our desire to hold on to something.”

Family Frames: Photography, Narrative and Postmemory Marianne Hirsch (Harvard University Press 1997)

• “Barhes connects photography not just to life but to life-giving” (p20)

On Photography, Susan Sontag (Penguin Books, London, 1977)

• “Through photographs, each family constructs a portrait chronicle of itself – a portable kit of images that bears witness to its connectedness.” (p8)
• “photography came along to memorialize, to restate symbolically, the imperilled continuity and vanishing extendednedd of family life.” (p9)
• “A way of certifying experience, taking photographs is also a way of refusing it” (p9)