THE FORENSIC TURN

THE FORENSIC TURN
A group exhibition curated by PAUL LOWE

With images by EDMUND CLARK, ZIJAH GAFIC, ASHLEY GILBERTSON, SHANNON JENSEN, SIMON NORFOLK and FRED RAMOS

WARM Festival at the Academy of Fine Arts, Sarajevo, 2015

Images of atrocity are deeply problematic. They create a tension between form and content and are often accused of re-victimisation, aesthetisation of suffering, compassion fatigue and exploitation. As an alternative to graphic depictions of violence, The Forensic Turn examines images that do not show the act itself or the victim’s body, but instead focus on the spaces and objects involved in such events.

The absence of visible violence can lead the viewer into an imaginative engagement with atrocity and with those who perpetrate it. In this sense, Hannah Arendt’s notion of the “banality of evil” suggests that the sites of violence are often ordinary and nondescript, and that the tools used in such acts are equally mundane. Photography, through its optical-mechanical process, records these banal facts, inviting the viewer to scan for details while holding in mind the weight of what has occurred.

By focusing on traces rather than spectacle, the exhibition proposes an alternative strategy for representing conflict – one that addresses ethical concerns while opening a space for reflection on violence, responsibility and memory.