ENCOUNTERING OVER/SIGHTS. REMEMBERING INVISIBLE PASTS THROUGH PHOTOGRAPHY

Abstract

The article revisits both other forms of memory and memory of others. Two rather different global cultural industries, namely art and tourism are discussed with regard to their mediating function of memorialisation and imaging practices and the encounters their cultural forms and objects can foster. Discussing different forms of cultural memorialisation in South Africa, a special focus is put on visual cultural memory, photography, the notion of absence and visibility. While the tourist script here seems to require a tangible memorial and proper 'sites' to visit, contemporary South African photography occupied with questions of memory and place often features seemingly empty city- or landscapes that one might term 'oversites' (for example in the work of David Goldblatt and Thabiso Sekgala). The erected monumental site as well as the seemingly emptied landscape or mundane object both constitute in-between-spaces for sensing and negotiating others' and shared memories. The article introduces patterns as to how this space is opened and appropriated by viewers and visitors. It discusses the travelling artist photograph and the visited memorial - images of which of course also circulate - as different modes of engagement (Jill Bennett) with Other memories in postcolonial times of entanglement (Achille Mbembe), offering possible spaces for sustaining reminiscence.