Fossil

Photography-memory-reality.

Nowadays we are constantly confronted with reproduction. We perceive images of objects as objects themselves. Many sculptures, places, and 3D objects are known to us only through images. But an image is a reproduction of reality. Photography was born as a tool to reproduce reality with scientific precision, but the truth we used to attach to this medium has disappeared these days.

Walter Benjamin was convinced that the reproduction lacks aura, because it can be multiple. For thousands of years people were used to perceive reproduction, copy, as the original. I am convinced that the aura is the projection that we make onto the original objects or their reproductions: often it does not matter whether an object is a unique, hand-made original or a (multiple) reproduction as people can become attached to any object.

Fossils are imprints, reproductions of the original ancient creatures. On the other hand we do regard fossils as relics. This is an example of objects that are reproductions, but these reproductions are full of aura.

In this project I created these relics by myself. I have created fossils, which are imprints by their nature, out of clay. These hand-made objects, copies of the relics, are reproductions that are full of my own fingerprints. Since these fossils are hand-made by me, they regain their aura. By taking photographs of these hand-made artifacts that belong in museums I create a dialog of interpretation between documentation and reproduction.