Memoria olvido 2015

Francis Naranjo's 'Memoria Olvido' uses light, photography, and I think, a pair of scissors, to explore themes of memory and forgetting. There’s a real contrast between the harsh LED light and the shadowy monochrome photographs. It’s like trying to illuminate something that inherently resists clarity. The photos themselves seem like lost documents, maybe old portraits, and that clinical light and the scissors suggest a kind of dissection or examination of the past. It also evokes a sense of tension – what are we supposed to do with these forgotten memories? Are we supposed to cut them up or shed light on them? Naranjo’s piece reminds me a little bit of Christian Boltanski, who also uses photography and found objects to explore the fragility of memory and history, it really speaks to the way that art can embrace uncertainty, inviting us to question what we think we know.