DIS (Festive Fare)) is a poem about forgetting. A group of friends sit at the banks of the river Lethe. Slowly they get intoxicated by wine and drugs. They want to forget, get rid of their memories.
Reading and rereading the poem I wondered if it wouldn’t be interesting to make a triptych about the involuntary loss of memories. We don’t want to forget, but year after year our memories become more and more vague until they are erased, forgotten. This is symbolized in a series of photos.
The first panel shows grandfathers and grandsons.
With each generation the memories become vaguer. The greater the distance, the more blurred the memories. That’s why the grandfathers and the grandsons are not looking at each other. It is also why the oldest grandfather is not completely sharp.
The middle panel consists of three images, depicting the stages of forgetting. The first photo symbolizes the growth of the holes in the memory. The second, with the stacked tombstones, shows that the unforgettable (Unvergessen) are forgotten, while on the third photo we see how the names on the general the graves are removed. Soon the tombstones will be cleared away.
The third panel shows a series of tombstone portraits , which should keep the memory of the deceased alive. But with the passage of time the portraits are increasingly blurred. We don’t want to forget and yet, we forget.
I made this triptych for a group exhibition in the city hall of The Hague. For this exhibition ten elderly artists, ten young emerging artists and ten elderly free time artists were invited to show their interpretation of the poem DIS.
Reading and rereading the poem I wondered if it wouldn’t be interesting to make a triptych about the involuntary loss of memories. We don’t want to forget, but year after year our memories become more and more vague until they are erased, forgotten. This is symbolized in a series of photos.
The first panel shows grandfathers and grandsons.
With each generation the memories become vaguer. The greater the distance, the more blurred the memories. That’s why the grandfathers and the grandsons are not looking at each other. It is also why the oldest grandfather is not completely sharp.
The middle panel consists of three images, depicting the stages of forgetting. The first photo symbolizes the growth of the holes in the memory. The second, with the stacked tombstones, shows that the unforgettable (Unvergessen) are forgotten, while on the third photo we see how the names on the general the graves are removed. Soon the tombstones will be cleared away.
The third panel shows a series of tombstone portraits , which should keep the memory of the deceased alive. But with the passage of time the portraits are increasingly blurred. We don’t want to forget and yet, we forget.
I made this triptych for a group exhibition in the city hall of The Hague. For this exhibition ten elderly artists, ten young emerging artists and ten elderly free time artists were invited to show their interpretation of the poem DIS.