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A reflection on memory, observance, and interaction through the visual comparison of Auschwitz and Ground Zero. Clara Braddick. Photography & Imaging BFA Thesis, Tisch School of the Arts, NYU. 2012.
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Memory and ObservanceClara Braddick
Memory and ObservanceClara Braddick
Self Portrait
at Ground Zero,
2011
As a photographer, the camera acts as a simultaneous barrier and tool
for me to understand the world. It widens the gap between looking and
seeing, and active versus passive participation in a place. I visited
Auschwitz while studying abroad in the fall of 2010, and visited The
World Trade Center on the 10th anniversary of September 11th, 2001.
Visiting these two sites so close together in time, I was struck by
the ways in which these places have been transformed into memorials.
I want to raise the question of what it means to photograph in a place
that has been transformed from a chaotic, traumatic landscape to a con-
tained, constructed memorial. Why do we revisit painful events? By pho-
tographing Auschwitz and Ground Zero, am I reopening a healed wound,
or gaining something new from the experience?
The images in this book illustrate that there is something to be reckoned
with in these places; photography shifts the way we experience and think
about loss and memorialization through its preservation of the temporal.
The act of photographing at these memorials becomes significant to how
visitors deal with the complexity of the Holocaust and 9/11. The camera
enables the everyday person to visually construct a singular perspective
isolated from the whole, and perhaps in doing so, brings new meaning to
the revisiting of Auschwitz and Ground Zero.
Ground Zero on September 11, 2011
Train Tracks to Auschwitz, 2010
Footprint at Night
Ground Zero, 2011
Right: Empty Space
Ground Zero, 2011
Tunnel (Imagined Gravestone)
Auschwitz, 2010
Wire Figures
Auschwitz, 2010
[pause]
Portraits and Empty Beds. Auschwitz, 2010
Anonymous Photographs on Display in Schindler’s Factory
Krakow, Poland, 2010
Barbed Wire Fence Against a Photograph. Schindler’s Factory. Krakow, Poland, 2010
Twisted Metal Against a Photograph. World Trade Center Memorial Museum, New York, 2011
Observance
World Trade Center, 2011
Seeing
World Trade Center, 2011
Left Behind
Auschwitz, 2010
Left Behind II
Ground Zero, 2011
[pause]
Instead of 52 Horses
Auschwitz, 2010
Portraits, World Trade
Center Memorial
Museum, New York,
2011.
Left: Portraits,
Auschwitz, 2010
Cameras at Ground Zero, 2011
Cameras at Auschwitz, 2010
Shoes
Auschwitz, 2010
Reflections
Ground Zero, 2011
Helmet in the Gift Shop. Ground Zero, 2011
Glasses in a Display Case. Auschwitz, 2010
Prisoner Isolation Cells
Auschwitz, 2010
Bunks
Auschwitz, 2010
Reflections II
Ground Zero, 2011
All Images © Clara Braddick, 2012.
www.clarabraddick.com
