PHOTOGRAPHY AS A MEDIUM OF MEMORY AND LOSS: ONTOLOGICAL AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF VISUAL REPRESENTATION OF ABSENCE
Keywords:
Photography; visual anthropology; memory; loss; grief; ontology of the image; phenomenology of perception; commemorative practices; visual studies; thanatology.Abstract
This article examines photography as a medium of memory and loss, analyzing its ontological and phenomenological dimensions in contemporary photographic projects. Focusing on strategies of visualizing absence, the author demonstrated how fragmentation, silence, and emptiness emerge as key expressive devices that constitute a distinct visual language of grief. Using the conceptual works by Karolina Jonderko («Self-Portrait with My Mother»), Jennifer Loeber («Left Behind»), Alicja Dobrucka («I like you, I like you a lot»), and Laia Abril («The Epilogue»), the author identified diverse approaches to loss representation — from individual bodily practices to collective archival investigations. Special emphasis is on material traces (clothing, personal objects, archival images) as mnemonic mediators and tools for reconstructing new relationships with a loss. The analysis showed how photographic images transcend the presence/absence binarity, creating a complex semiotic space where a loss acquires visual form. Phenomenological analysis reveals the therapeutic potential of photographic projects that not only document grief but become spaces for its active processing and transformation. This research contributes to interdisciplinary discussions at the intersection of visual arts and memory psychology, highlighting photography’s unique capacity to balance documentary authenticity with artistic expression.
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