Recollecting Wounded Narratives: The Reconstruction of a Backpack

• Autor(a) principal: Flohr, Zsuzsi
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://doi.org/10.34632/diffractions.2021.9850

This photo essay examines the process of recollecting wounded narratives. It explores how these narratives are rooted in various concepts of memory and postmemory, which are, in turn, embedded in a familial framework and in the visual arts. The focus here is on a backpack formerly owned by my grandfather, Gyula Flohr, which was the inspiration for my art project Chances in Life – Grandpa’s Backpack. This project illustrates the process of recollecting wounded narratives in practice, addressing the life of my grandfather, primarily by reconstructing through drawings the built environment in which his life was framed, examining discovered family relics, and listening to conversations with Gyula’s two children: my father, János, and my aunt, Marcsi. Chances in Life presents contradictory narratives told by the family and the state, pointing to nuanced social and gender relations, and the diminished chances in life in Eastern Europe in an increasingly closed society.