by Ingrid Newton
The faded images, fragments of broken headstones and illegible inscriptions in these photographs – anonymous, unidentified, incognito – bear witness to the transience of memory and of all human life. Defaced, smashed photographs stare out blindly at the world; the face of an unknown beauty reminds us of our mortality; newly erected memorials await their unnamed occupants; once carefully tended graves now lie forgotten or covered with weeds. We may read the names, dates and loving tributes but we can never know anything of the lives they represent – the dead are the true incognito.
These images are part of an ongoing, long-term project I have been working on over the past year. Entitled In the Midst of Life, the series explores memorial customs and rituals, revealing our attitudes towards death and the notion of oblivion.
On the theme of INCOGNITO, Spring 2012