Cache by Dana Stirling

“My family roots back to Europe, but I was born in Israel. I was born two year after my family migrated to Israel due to anti-Semitic attacks on my brother’s Hebrew school.  I was a child on a fence; a daughter to a migrating family. The house within culturally stayed European but outside was the Israeli controversial culture. I always felt a misfit with my partial incomplete identity; torn apart between parents who have never blended in to the Israeli culture I felt only half belonged too. 

Over the years I have heard of my parent’s memories and stories. I remember hearing of snow, youth and happiness. Stories of happier days. The stories held on to the memories of times that I wasn’t a part of, and portraits of family members that always remained anonymous to me and their faces where no more distinct than any other person in generic photo album. These stories were supposed to be my heritage.

Family albums had become a standard in a process of portraying a family and the creation of a collective memory. Things as a birthday cake, children taking a bath or a family trip have become a portrait of the normal memory. Sometimes we don’t even remember the occasion but we can relive it by looking at the picture and assuming we remember the memory it represents. Both my family albums and the generic family albums are fascinating to me. As I grew up I’ve started to question photography’s function as my memory, as my family heritage. I cannot find much of a different between the histories found in my own family album to any other family album. 

I started to look for my identity not only in the old photos but reflect my feeling from these photos on to the world around me. I look for Moments and objects were there is a tension that is created by their incomplete aesthetic. Photography allows me to look at the little and unimportant objects around me and make them a part of my history just by giving them attention.  By looking at them I capture them to remember, not letting them go away, yet not trying to save them. Watching their last seconds before I leave and the moment becomes irrelevant, capturing their last breath. With my camera I grant them with eternity and in that I grant myself a memory.” - Dana Stirling
 
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「透過相機,我予它們永恆;而我予自身留下回憶。」她說。
 
Dana Stirling出生於一個移民家庭,她在以色列誕生,而她的家族則根源於歐洲。Stirling一家維持著歐洲式的生活方式,然而踏出大門,則是截然不同的以色列文化。在與異地格格不入的成長背景之下,Dana自承無法尋得完整的身份認同。多年來,她從父母的口中想像他們的回憶和故事,那些她沒有參與的部分與家鄉風景,因而使她對家族相簿格外著迷。
 
家族相簿——充滿生日蛋糕、小孩泡澡或者家庭出遊——一些我們其實並不全然記得的場景,透過照片我們似乎感覺自己能夠重溫當下。有趣的是,每個人「標準的」家族相簿大多並無太大的差異,個體歷史的特殊性顯得模糊。這令Dana開始思考攝影之於回憶、家族史的功能。
 
Dana找尋她自己的身份,不僅在老照片中尋找過去,同樣的,她關注她自這些照片所反映的情緒、感受著圍繞著她的世界。攝影令她注意起身邊一些容易被忽視的事物,令它們成為她自身歷史的一部分。透過凝視,她不再讓它們從身邊就這樣溜走,但也並非想多做挽留——她純粹是捕捉了它們、讓它們浮現在記憶之中。她尋找著記憶和物件,具有由不完整的審美所創造的張力,促成了綴滿日常切片的系列攝影《緩存》(Cache),而攝影師握有那把開啓回憶的鑰匙。