Katelyn Curtis Blog Post

 

 

 

 

 

 

    The Field of Memory: Irina Rozovsky’s One to Nothing

 

 

By: Katelyn Curtis

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

               Irina Rozovsky went an visited Israel in 2008 originally to visit the land her ancestors had come from and with no intent originally to photograph, let alone make a book of her completed series. Rozovsky photos are meant to be looked at together; thus, creating a narrative that "moves lightly – episodically – between bold and diminutive statements, between raging light and languorous pastels, between a poetics of the absurd and the undigested normalcy of the everyday mundane". Her photos vary from a woman covered in mud, children playing, sheep walking down the street, a man climbing over a gate, and much more.

               This series is about Israel in the physical, symbolically to biblical history, and as Israel being the home of Rozovsky's ancestors. She is absorbing her surroundings and trying to create a sense of identity with herself and the land, moving from one section to another in the photos. Reacting as what her life may have been like or what her family would have been if there. She furthers investigates the religious conflicts around and ties in subtly throughout the series.

               Rozovsky series is creative that she went back to her family's homeland to reflect and then to go further, and a create a series on her findings. Doing so, is creating new memories in her head, and the photos acting like bullet points to her self exploring and need for connection. Personally makes me also reflect on where my ancestors have come from, where they might have lived, done for work, and why they decided to start a new path for their children.