Posthumous Landscape - Part 2

Termo:

(Term, v. to terminate, obsolete.)

A few weeks after the land clearing, I returned to the site for several reasons. One reason is the geographical proximity of Ermo, as well as the phonetic similarity between Termo and Ermo. Additionally, there exists an aesthetic connection between both projects that could work as a complement or yet another facet of a territory transformation.

In my previous post, Posthumous Landscape - Part 1, I referenced a photograph titled “March, 2020,” which serves as a response to a photograph taken by my mother in 1980.

I chose to use that photograph as a starting point or reference to the past. I am not particularly interested in capturing what will be; it will likely consist of apartment condominiums with names such as “luxury something.” I am more intrigued by this intermediate state - a moment that is neither what it will become nor recognizable as what it once was.

The destruction deemed necessary for construction, the void, the displacement, and the disappearance of remnants are all significant. Now, what lies beneath the surface, previously unseen, is beginning to emerge. We no longer observe the trees; instead, we see the roots exposed on the surface. Where I position my tripod, the ground is cleaved in two; we can no longer hear the birds or the wind, only the roots and the marks left by machinery.

The so-called identity of the place may be lost. However, the identity resides within the memory of each individual. Photographs alone will not be enough to attest what this place once was. My father's photograph, without contextualizing, will merely be another image - like those old photographs acquired at flea markets - representing merely a guy in the woods. And I like that possibility; it may exist more profoundly in uncertainty than in certainty and truth.

From these woods, only my memories and a few photographs will remain.

The trees will be reduced to firewood.

And the ghosts - where will they go?

Bruno Silva is part of »Guest Room: Tina Campt & Keisha Scarville«.