Uncovering Memory

Tanja Sakota

Description

An interdisciplinary work that proposes innovative ways to approach pedagogy using sites of memories for practice-based research, autoethnography and film.

Travelling along a timeline of memory, Tanja Sakota takes us on a journey through South Africa, Germany, Poland and Bosnia/Herzegovina. Using a camera and short film format, Sakota hosts several workshops in different countries focused on interacting and engaging with remembering through different memory sites. The author sits at the core but the book is an interdisciplinary work shaped around films made by different workshop participants using film to access personal interpretations of space and place. Questions that underpin the uncovering of memories are: How does one use a camera to make the invisible visible? How does one remember events that one hasn’t necessarily experienced? How does one use film to interrogate the past from the future present? As the journey evolves, workshop participants and readers alike enter into a conversation around practice-based research, autoethnography and film.

List of images

Foreword – Cynthia Kros

Acknowledgements

Map of Africa and Europe

PRACTICE-BASED RESEARCH, TEACHING AND LEARNING

Chapter 1 Creating a context

Chapter 2 Film as a research tool

Chapter 3 Accessing memory through the visible and the invisible

Chapter 4 Timelines and site-specific research

Chapter 5 Working in parallel why the workshop process?

PART I WORKING WITH STUDENTS: Cape Town, Johannesburg, Berlin

Chapter 6 Decolonising the curriculum

Chapter 7 Tropes of time workshop

Chapter 8 Towards a future past workshop: a German perspective

Chapter 9 Conversation with memory workshop

Chapter 10 Memory through site-specific research: a discussion post-practice

PART II WORKING WITH PEERS: Constitution Hill, Johannesburg

Chapter 11 Personal interpretations of political spaces

Chapter 12 The past, relevance and readings

Chapter 13 The politics of remembering workshop

Chapter 14 Understanding personal, political and cultural memory

Chapter 15 Point of view: a discussion post-practice

PART III WORKING WITH MYSELF: Poland, Germany, Bosnia/Herzegovina, South Africa

Chapter 16 Finding my voice

Chapter 17 Autoethnography and remembering through the self

Chapter 18 Excavating ghosts: Perpetrators and victims

Chapter 19 My film Shattered Reflection

Chapter 20 Looking at the reflections: a discussion post-practice

MOVING FORWARD

Chapter 21 Recognising artistic research as good practice

Film credits

Glossary of terms

Bibliography

Index

Sujets

• Cinéma
• Cinéma
• Cinéma
• Cinema
• Attentats du 11 septembre 2001
• Film
• ART
• Yougoslavie
• Anthropology
• Video
• Yugoslavia
• Rwandan Genocide
• September 11 attacks

Informations

• Publié par: WITS University Press
• Date de parution: 01 mars 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781776148011
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Published in South Africa by:
Wits University Press
1 Jan Smuts Avenue
Johannesburg 2001
www.witspress.co.za
Copyright © Tanja Sakota 2023
Published edition © Wits University Press 2023
Images © Copyright holders
First published 2023
http://dx.doi.org.10.18772/12023037984
978-1-77614-798-4 (Paperback)
978-1-77614-799-1 (Hardback)
978-1-77614-800-4 (Web PDF)
978-1-77614-801-1 (EPUB)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher, except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act, Act 98 of 1978.
All images remain the property of the copyright holders. The publishers gratefully acknowledge the publishers, institutions and individuals referenced in captions for the use of images. Every effort has been made to locate the original copyright holders of the images reproduced here; please contact Wits University Press in case of any omissions or errors.
This publication is peer reviewed following international best practice standards for academic and scholarly books.
Project manager: Alison Lockhart
Copyeditor: Alison Lowry
Proofreader: Alison Lockhart
Indexer: Sanet le Roux
Cover design: Hybrid Creative
Typeset in 10 point Minion Pro
To Nikita and Aleksa
CONTENTS
LIST OF IMAGES
FOREWORD – CYNTHIA KROS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
MAP OF AFRICA AND EUROPE
PRACTICE- BASED RESEARCH, TEACHING AND LEARNING Chapter 1 Creating a context Chapter 2 Film as a research tool Chapter 3 Accessing memory through the visible and the invisible Chapter 4 Timelines and site-specific research Chapter 5 Working in parallel: why the workshop process? PART I WORKING WITH STUDENTS: CAPE TOWN, JOHANNESBURG, BERLIN Chapter 6 Decolonising the curriculum Chapter 7 Tropes of time workshop Chapter 8 Towards a future past workshop: a German perspective Chapter 9 Conversation with memory workshop Chapter 10 Memory through site-specific research: a discussion post-practice PART II WORKING WITH PEERS: CONSTITUTION HILL, JOHANNESBURG Chapter 11 Personal interpretations of political spaces Chapter 12 The past, relevance and readings Chapter 13 The politics of remembering workshop Chapter 14 Understanding personal, political and cultural memory Chapter 15 Point of view: a discussion post-practice PART III WORKING WITH MYSELF: POLAND, GERMANY, BOSNIA/HERZEGOVINA, SOUTH AFRICA Chapter 16 Finding my voice Chapter 17 Autoethnography and remembering through the self Chapter 18 Excavating ghosts: Perpetrators and victims Chapter 19 My film Shattered Reflection Chapter 20 Looking at the reflections: a discussion post-practice
MOVING FORWARD Chapter 21 Recognising artistic research as good practice
FILM CREDITS
GLOSSARY OF TERMS
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
LIST OF IMAGES
MAP OF AFRICA AND EUROPE I invite you on a journey to some faraway places as we try to remember memories that are not always mine but remain hidden within space and place. We will visit various sites in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Beslau/Wroclaw, Weißenfels, Berlin, Stolac and Kozice .
CHAPTER 1 Figure 1.1 Venue of Potsdam Conference held from 17 July to 2 August 1945. The conference took place at General Secretary Joseph Stalin’s residence, Cecilienhof Schloss in Potsdam. © Amy Hills Figure 1.2 Gardens outside Stalin’s villa in Potsdam. This is the view outside the large window of the red room where the Potsdam Conference was held. © Tanja Sakota
CHAPTER 4 Figure 4.1 Map of Constitution Hill, the buildings and surroundings. The plan shows the layout of the prison buildings but more importantly it shows the proximity of this incarceration site to the city. Map by Jackson Gondo, © Tanja Sakota
CHAPTER 7 Figure 7.1 The politics of space: the location where the statue of Rhodes once stood. This image depicts the centrality of the statue to the university building with the mountain in the background. © Shubham Mehta Figure 7.2 The empty plinth where the Rhodes statue sat was covered with a board painted with the Ndebele print, possibly claiming the space in defiance of the statue. © Shubham Mehta Figure 7.3 This image shows a painted shadow of the Rhodes statue, possibly implying that despite his removal, his colonial presence still lurks in the shadows. © Shubham Mehta Figure 7.4 An image of modern-day Rissik Street in Johannesburg. The image is opaquely overlaid with archival footage of the same part of the street taken in the 1950s. © Boitumelo Molalugi Figure 7.5 Leaving your mark: one step at a time. The soft focus on the feet of the pedestrian reminds us of the shadows of the people who navigate and work in this city. © Boitumelo Molalugi Figure 7.6 The shadows and reflections of Rissik Street at night. Again, the director uses a shadowy soft focus on a man walking across from the right-hand side of the image. © Boitumelo Molalugi
CHAPTER 8 Figure 8.1 An animated wide shot to establish the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. It depicts the enormity and vastness of this space as the structures continue deep into the image. © Jan Schmitz Figure 8.2 Walking through the memorial: the endless passage. Another point of view of the memorial, this time taken deeper into the space where the cuboids are very large. © Jan Schmitz Figure 8.3 A view taken from the mid-point of one of the cuboids looking up towards the sky. The image depicts the rough cracks and markings on the structure. © Jan Schmitz Figure 8.4 A sign showing Marie’s street Großgörschenstraße. The image appears to establish the space and setting but we only understand its relevance to the monument at the end of the film. © Patrick Wallochny Figure 8.5 The waterfall taken from the top of the cascade showing the beauty of the surroundings and the Berlin city street in the background perfectly aligned with the water. © Patrick Wallochny Figure 8.6 Image taken from behind the two friends as they sit by the monument at the top of the hill watching the view of the city below. The street seems to cascade just like the water. © Patrick Wallochny
CHAPTER 9 Figure 9.1 Conversation with memory: self-portrait. The image only shows half of my face as a reminder of the fragmentation of memory. We never have the full story, only snippets. © Tanja Sakota Figure 9.2 The site of the Holocaust Memorial, officially known as the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. It is dispersed with trees and the buildings in the background show how it is located within the city space. © Tanja Sakota Figure 9.3 An image of the Humboldt University library. The building is large and frames Bebelplatz on the one side. On 10 May 1933 the Nazis took the books out of the library and burned them in front of the building on the square. The memorial stands below the surface in the middle of the square. It is evident through the white light reflecting from below. © Tanja Sakota Figure 9.4 There are numerous reminders of the Wall throughout Berlin. In this image I am standing at a low angle looking up and in between the metal poles/rods that stand where the Wall once stood. © Tanja Sakota Figure 9.5 The opening image of the film showing a man in the Tier-garten park cranking a music box to the left of the image. His parrot watches him as he takes a bit of food. © Katharina Grählert Figure 9.6 An image giving a glimpse of the buildings surrounding Bebelplatz where the 1933 Nazi book-burning took place. St Hedwig’s Cathedral is to the left of the image. © Katharina Grählert Figure 9.7 Friends on a bench in a park: calm before storm. This is the last image of the film showing the two friends sitting in the park oblivious to the violence that is about to transpire. © Katharina Grählert Figure 9.8 The image is as it appears in the film. It shows the building of the new Ethnological Museum. The scaffolding and crane depict the physical restoration of the building while implying the film’s message concerning the psychological restoration that is still necessary. © Lise Zurné Figure 9.9 Mohrenstraße subway stop. The director adds the dictionary definition of the word to explain the relevance of the word in the context of the film. © Lise Zurné Figure 9.10 Oberbaumbrücke: this bridge divided the city into East and West during the Cold War. The street name, May-Ayim-Ufer (formerly known as Größenufer), now runs along the bank of the river leading towards the bridge. © Lise Zurné Figure 9.11 Reading: the filmmaker is sitting on the glass reading the extract from Bradbury’s novel while the camera hints towards the empty bookshelves below. © Luisa Munoz Figure 9.12 Close-up on the empty bookshelves as a reminder of the knowledge that was lost when the books were burned by the Nazis on 10 May 1933. © Luisa Munoz Figure 9.13 When filming in streets there is no control of what happens around you. One also cannot show faces of other people without consent. This image shows how visuals change when engaging with this type of research because people walked into the shot while filming. © Luisa Munoz
CHAPTER 11 Figure 11.1 View of Braamfontein in the mist from the entrance of the Old Fort at Constitution Hill. The image of the building in the mist is the only suggestion that the city exists beyond the clouds. © Tanja Sakota Figure 11.2 The new glass towers over the staircases of the Awaiting Trial Block. The image with the sun reflecting the Johannesburg sky shines on the open courtyard, a symbol for gatherings (something that was prohibited during apartheid). © Tanja Sakota
CHAPTER 13 Figure 13.1 The cells: this image depicts the harsh conditions within which prisoners were expected to live. There is nothing except the dark peeling red and brown paint. The lack of air and ventilation and the overall depressingly dull and bleak atmosphere of this image is foreboding. © Juliet Kamanga, Gianina Levy, Akietou Serah Nkwenti, Jason Stroud and Dylan V