Our Project Called "The Unperson" (11 Pics)

This is Susana Moyaho and Andrea Tejeda. In 2017 we created The Unperson Project. This project is an archive of oblivion. We made an open call inviting people to donate photographs to us in which they had erased someone from the image, either as a means to forget them, or to forget a moment in their past. This process is called vaporization and once someone is vaporized they become an Unperson, a term created by George Orwell in his novel 1984. We focus on exploring the value of the photograph as a medium in which attempts to inflict oblivion are perpetrated and how the blank spaces, burn marks, cut out faces, or scratched off ink take the place of someone.

These spaces imply the presence of the ones who went from apotheosis to damnatio memoriae. Once the participants donate the image to us we become archivists and curators. cataloging the photographs, and deciding on their place in the archive. Additionally, they now have the potential to be re-contextualized to become part of a new form of an exhibition. These new material forms create a different experience to that originally intended by the participant so that by making them public they also give up their control over them. By doing this we make visible the attempts to achieve oblivion, questioning the idea of the photograph as a private possession.

More info: theunpersonproject.com