"Contemporary Memory/Memorial as Hauntology", A discussion on Kupferminc's The Name and the Number, Martinez's Remnants, and Sława Harasymowicz's Field

Domingo Martinez's video Remnants continues the theme of haunting within our landscapes, and the multi-layered experiences of memories acting out through the physical and imagined palimpsest in our daily experiences. Exploring these altered images of monuments through personal and collective memory, Martinez questions the activity of transforming or cancelling the images and the hegemonic versions of history. Mirta Kupferminc's videowork offers part of the artist's continuous reflection on art and the potential for it to plunge the viewer into universal narratives, while taking her into the private space, where symbols and signs reference the very personal, lived experiences of the artist. Thus prompting an address to social life, and the potential for one to become an agent for history and memory. For Harasymowicz, meanwhile, the personal plays out against the archive in a way that one can relate to the artist's on-going episodic investigation of auto/biography in the context of public history, architecture and fiction. The conversation around all three works will inevitably reflect on personal memory and the palimpsest of histories we live amongst: the embodiment and affect of our living histories, the silences and invisibilities in our shared narratives.