Post-punctum

Project "Post -punctum" was inspired by 19th century post-mortem photography. I used ambrotype method to document the journey which body has to complete from the moment of death till the burial. My work is meant to question the way how the death of an individual person is depicted in contemporary visual culture. It is considered a taboo, although media bombards us with images of violent mass deaths. Photographs were taken in a funeral home in the north of Poland. To preserve anonymity of the photographed bodies and their surroundings I have chosen to use close-up to frame my images. I believe it gives more universal and ordinary outlook. Using an archaic photographic method enables me to dissolve the boundries between time, space, past, present, history and reality - I mean to achieve certain timelessness. The title of the series is derived from the Roland Barthes' famous essay Camera Lucida in which the author coins the term of punctum. This notion was a starting point of my reflection on death and photography as well as its dematerialisation.