I knew that it was a collection of old and abandoned school desks, which had not been used for over twenty-five years. When I first saw them, an inner emotion overwhelmed me. I felt that life was beating faintly, imperceptibly but certainly, in those wooden boards. They were the documented collective memory of individuals, who indeed “were all there.”
3321 is the number of a pupil who sat behind a desk. It is no longer just an abstract number after the disappearance of the person for whom it was. Instead, it has become the reminiscent memory of its transient holder.
In my experience with “Dialectics,” I started off from the philosophical representation of a concept, namely the sustainability of traces, to invoke a collective memory. I have inscribed my quest within the scope of a methodological research that aimed at celebrating content and not form, as the main focus in a work of art.
These boards are exhibited in the state they were when I first found them. Their original state reveals their identity, as old images revive the memory of those to whom they belong.
