EXHIBITION - NOSTALGIC SHOT

An exhibition of photographs in the old photographic technique of VanDyke Brown, by author Damir Pildek, on the occasion of the industrial heritage day in Sisak.

GHOSTS OF THE PAST
Photos capture the passage of time and remain with us. Whether it is a timeless motif or a recording of a specific situation that is meant to evoke a memory in the future, photographs represent a link between time and their author. The author consciously records certain situations, considering the existing elements in the space—people, environment, and objects. Thus, Photography becomes a medium for transferring a large amount of information. But what if the photograph reflects the author's desire to experiment? Does it even then become a reflection of time, or does it transcend it? Can time be used as a motivator, and searches for such a motive lead to a much deeper understanding of time? This is precisely what photographer Damir Pildek reaches for when he shows silhouettes of people in neglected and untidy industrial spaces in his photographs. The space itself reveals the influence of time on its condition. When silhouettes of people, like ghosts, assume certain poses that associate them with a past space, the photograph offers a much deeper understanding of time. Photographs thus offer multiple readings. On the one hand, empty and derelict objects with silhouettes indicate the former presence of people in these spaces and their importance in the context of the work process, and evoke memories of the values ​​of those factories in the past, on the other hand, they indicate the influence of the passage of time and a gloomy future without possible progress. Both readings are legitimate. The most obvious thing in these photos is the time that has passed and will not return. Tempi passati. In his search for motives, the author actually pointed out the layers of decay and the inevitability of that process.
The search for time is not only in the motifs that Pildek strives for, but also in the photographic processes that create his works. It is a blend of traditional and modern photographic processes.
Old photographic processes retain long-forgotten knowledge around them. To penetrate them, it is necessary to find various sources that discuss them and can aid in their reconstruction. On the other hand, the challenge is a combination of old and new processes. The photos were taken with a digital camera, but old processes were used for development. The new technique enables certain elements in the creation of a photograph, while the old processes enable the photograph to acquire "temporality", or perhaps better said, age. The search for time thus exists on two levels: technical and artistic. Thanks to both old and new processes, Pildek creates scenes that also possess the qualities of animation, which is most evident in the outlines of the person's movements in the photo. He uses multiple exposures in order to make the presented scenes more dynamic.
Marcel Proust spoke about the search for lost time, about his personal experiences that he tries to reconstruct; Pildek talks about the time he personally lived through, as well as about the space he did not personally experience at the time of its functioning, that is, it was not lost for him, but he tries to reconstruct it based on certain parameters. Just as Prosut "cannot accurately communicate the pure essence of memory", i.e., the past, so Pildek cannot fully penetrate the past of the space in which he works. Despite this, his work offers certain elements that encourage thinking and reveal motives that extend beyond the local environment, conveying more complex messages that are understandable on a much wider level. The silhouettes in his photographs are not real people, but they still seem lifelike. They evoke time, but they can never fully reconstruct it. It is the mystique of time. Trying to get to it is always in vain, but people constantly try to go back in time, go through time, and stimulate memory.