Events Are Always Original
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- Events Are Always Original
- 2010
- series of 9 photographs, b&w silver gelatin prints, 44 × 29 cm
In the archive of Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Bitter/Weber found photographs showing interior spaces of the university that were obviously taken after gatherings had been held. There are notes and slogans on chalkboards, the furniture has been moved, and various articles of clothing have been left behind. The slogans are indicative of political gatherings—and these small-format, black-and-white photos labeled with archive numbers were, in fact, taken during the occupation of administrative spaces by revolting students in 1968 in order to document the “destruction” for which they held the students responsible. Here, the “political” is sought in those traces that the students left in the normal order of the university. In which phenomena does that shared act of “being political” actually crystallize? Is it not part of the essence of this form of community (not as a substance, but rather as a contingent moment of action) to elude the image, to always be missed by the image? What images of community as a (temporary) social—and/or political—construct do photographic images produce, if indeed they always miss it? R.B.