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IC w8 War

  • HildeMaassen
  • Mar 14, 2020
  • 4 min read

Updated: Aug 15, 2020

IC for Informing Context

IC for Intensive Care.


Events have been canceled, theaters, swimming pools, attractions, cinemas and universities are closed only the regular schools for children and young people up to 18 remain open. Not because it is smart, but because we need the parents of those children who work in hospitals, at the fire brigade and police. If the children stay at home, this means that the parents also stay at home. So while the whole of the Netherlands has been asked to work as much as possible at home, not to visit each other, to communicate with each other via Skype, I go to work playing the nanny.


I find that I don't write as much in my CRJ of what I do. I have trouble organizing my thoughts. So I completely stopped taking photos to focus on writing my intent to prepare the essay. That while it feels like we ended up in a war. Daily life is partly halted because of Corona. Yesterday I bought enough pasta, rice and canned food to survive for 2 weeks and why the hell are all the shelves with toilet paper empty?


Today I went to the shop just for today's food, but there is hardly anything left. What kind of images do you remember? This two weeks from a couple in home quarantine who gave interviews in the newspaper and spoke to reporters on a phone outside with a film camera.

They became the symbol for Corona that way.


We see neighbors bring food and leave it behind while they receive 1000 piece puzzles from others to pass the time. It is almost a soap, but completely filmed from one point of view, through the window.


Actually, all stories are about the man who is a baker. What is so special that this image remains? I think it is one of the first in the Netherlands. I can identify with it. The fact that we know he is a baker makes it more special. We just see someone standing behind a window. The everyday, banal, your own home that becomes a prison. Wondering how you would handle it makes it come close. These 2 people give Corona a face for me.


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© Marc Bolsius

And how about this; empty supermarkets. Rows in rows without food. And the repetition of photos, the multiplicity, is confirmation of this. I can find a picture from almost every city in the Netherlands with an empty supermarket on the internet.

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How soon will I forget these images? I find it quite difficult to predict. I may forget the bakery sooner. The empty supermarket not so fast. I have been there and have seen this with my own eyes. Never before have I seen a store so empty. I think that what we experience is more like something far away and therefore impersonal.


I think photos that stay with you should somehow make contact with you personally. You have to hit something. I remember that during the Gulf War, in 1990 one teacher showed us this photo with the question; "who is this?"


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Nancy Burson, Big Brother 1993

Without hesitation, we all replied "Sadam Hussein". However, this photo was not of Hussein.


This image: ‘Big Brother’ was produced in 1983. Burson produced a series of images of political figures. This image is a blend of the faces of Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Mao and Khomeini and creates a recognisably human face. It comments on the similarities in behaviour and character of the men, rather than their political differences. The title ‘Big Brother’ presumably refers to George Orwell’s novel 1984, and suggests that Burson is creating the face that personifies dictatorship.


Why did I remember it? Because of the reference, the moment, or the fact that we thought it was Hoessein because we were surrounded by war propaganda? Who can tell?


The number of times you see a photo will also help, but the story, or the context in which you see a photo, is certainly important.


Still, I think music and scent trigger us faster into a moment as an image does. I remember an exhibition in which we heard the sounds of the crashing plane in the Bijlmer in Amsterdam. When asked if you could remember the image of the crash itself, I answered, just like about 80% of the visitors, positively. The crazy turned out; there were no images of the crash at all.


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@ ANP Photo / M. Antonisse - 1992

My husband once found a body in the park of someone who committed suicide. The man had previously washed himself with a certain soap. the following week he met a group of people near that place who smelled the same. That turned out to be the family looking for the crime scene. Every time he comes across someone who carries that scent, he is taken back to that moment. I myself went with the fire brigade for a photo project for 3 months. I can tell that once you smell the scent of burnt people, you immediately recognize the rest of your live.


It is well known that the combination of the use of the senses; seeing, hearing, smelling, feeling and tasting has more influence on remembering an image. Would that also work for a photo in the newspaper or in a book where you turn the page and feel the paper?


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© 2019 by Hilde Maassen 

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