PARTS UNKNOWN
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How can something absent be made visible? Parts Unknown is a collective work contemplating the ideas of missing and absence, made by 13 artists from the Master ÂPhotography & Society at the KABK in Den Haag. Originally conceived as a book p  roject, made into an online publication and interactive presentation due to the COVID-19 emergency, it finally found a paper form in this short extract made especially for Foam Magazine.
The name Parts Unknown suggests an undetermined destination. In the context of forensics, it conjures images of unknown parts of bodies d isfigured by acts of violence. A more liberating interpretation can be found in the work of the composer Richard Trythall, where parts are unknown not because they are missing, but so ‘fully integrated that it is impossible to subdivide into sections.’ Parts go missing as they merge into a whole. The stories in this collection testify to our common condition during the pandemic. We had to reinvent our artistic practices to adjust to the realities of being confined at home. In the online publication, you can toggle between views of each story, peering into the making of, the situations of our work and artistic experimentations. For Foam Magazine we bound all the projects together. Artists presented: 139
Anders Birger Atle Blekastad Thana Faroq Jakob Ganslmeier Kata Geibl Lena Holzer Marta Iwanek Batuhan Keskiner Xaver Konneker Federica Iozzo Anastasia Mityukova Jana Romanova Alexa Vachon
Grieving her unborn.
Goodbye Without Leaving ATLE BLEKASTAD For my brother time stopped in 1989. Apart from an increasing pile of music magazines, a steady rotation of newspapers and a cd player I bought him in the mid 90’s, nothing changed in his room. Sparsely furnished, measuring 3 × 3 meters, a bed, small coffee table, a little bookshelf with comics, a writing desk covered with band logos from the 70's and 80's, a light green chest of drawers with a small tv on top and a built in two door closet. The walls stayed the same, painted deep green, decorated with tour or album posters of Pink Floyd and Iron Maiden and a M arillion scarf, merchandise bought at concerts he attended during the tail end of the eighties. The only indication of time passing was the yellow staining of the edges of the magazines and posters.
Adonis ALEXA VACHON ‘We were a three person family before you were born, and we were a three person family after he left.’ — Father ‘When he was around 15, one of his friends was dead for three days before being identified. And I thought to myself, what kind of parents wouldn’t know that their son had been dead for three days? Well, I found out. For two and a half months, we didn’t know if he was alive or dead.’ — Mother
Subsumed by structures.
‘One time you and I were at the corner store and I saw a young man. I didn’t say anything to you, but you said to me, “That’s not him, mom.” I hadn’t seen him in so long. He left home at 14, shorter than I was...puberty... I didn’t even know what he would look like anymore. I realised I could pass my own son on the street and not even recognise him.’ — Mother ‘After I sent him to jail, I walked by him in the holding cell and I thought this may be the last time I ever see him. But if he’s going to live at all, this is the only choice. I walked by him and he said, “You bitch.” And I thought those may be the last words I ever hear from him.’ — Mother ‘We stopped searching because it was futile. What are you gonna do if you find him? He’s not gonna come home. Right? What’s gonna happen? It wasn’t like he was looking for us, he knew where we were. He wasn’t looking for a family.’ — Father
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Kodak Knows No Dark Days XAVER KONNEKER SMILES IN A MISSING PERSONS DATABASE The database for the missing is a place of disconcerting ambiguity and disorientation. A liminal space of waiting and not knowing, withering in fluctuating pains of hope and grief. It is an unsettling gaze with which we view the portraits of the missing. The repetitions of smiling photographs accompanied by their names and ages remind us of memorials, as the possibility of their passing is interjected into the image. There is something tragic and paradoxical about the appearance of a smile in such a negatively charged space. But what relationship is formed to the smile in the context of a missing persons database? ODONTOLOGY The practice of forensic odontology hosts a peculiar relationship between photography, death and the smile. In cases where bodies are decomposing and no dental records can be provided, odontologists will seek from friends and family members, photographs documenting their loved ones’ smiling. These photographs are in turn analysed to determine whether the dental structure in the photograph matches with the teeth of the decomposing body. These types of photographs are required, as the only part of the skeleton visible when you are alive is the smile.
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Building a casket for a child.
Der Falsche Herrenmensch / The Fake Masterrace JAKOB GANSLMEIER Many people collect these Nazi items. Some are original and many are forged. The ideology relies on these items as transmitters to communicate itself. In this project, the site of a crashed airplane becomes the starting point to investigate the themes of power, authenticity and Nazi souvenirs. The fact that Nazi ideology is still very present and makes use of, among other things, Nazi memorabilia, is in many countries and especially in my home country Germany very common. My goal is not to simply deny or destroy these morbid and macabre souvenirs for the sake of destroying them, Âbecause that would leave the ideology intact. Rather, I want to challenge it by using absurdity as a method to denounce and ridicule these items.
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A document signed with a fingerprint.
The Shadows ANDERS BIRGER MARCH 29, 1945 The ship is quiet. A gentle drizzle drums on the tarpaulin covering the wooden lifeboats. A few ships can be seen in the distance returning to Danzig to collect even more refugees. Then two deep bursts from the ship’s horn break the silence; land in sight. The passengers stir and slowly make their way to the deck. With tired eyes they gaze over the ocean. On the horizon a coastline starts to take shape. Soon church spires and the outline of a harbour appear. They are approaching Denmark, an enemy country still occupied by the German forces. A new land, and a new life draws closer for the many refugees. Thousands will make a life here until they can be returned to a war-torn Germany. Hildegard and Berthold, like thousands of others, will die before Christmas.
A friend turned into a missing person.
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The Impossibility of Future LENA HOLZER My dear friend, you were always one step ahead and this time I wish you weren’t. Are you cold? Are you okay? I’ve never met a mind as beautiful as yours — so radical and soft. You were wise and playful and you always had a plan. I also had a plan for us: to be as thick as thieves and to never forget about the other; Consider that achieved. Sometimes I compute my thoughts of you for the amount to be just right, so you can visit me when I dream. Last night you took me to a mountain top. We sat on the crest, side by side and I was scared of falling. I did not look into your eyes but rather closely at them. I knew I had to look for life and you held very still. Do you remember the last time that we met? We spoke about the past and a future that felt so real and so close. You truly filled a space with sun and sometimes all feels lost. There is no moment left with you. Dusk is falling. Once you said you were inspired by the impossible; and that is what this future is. But when I sleep and when I dream I tirelessly conquer this. It’s all still there. You are there.
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Falling / Flying MARTA IWANEK
Falling from the sky.
Bright, blue sky. Pregnant clouds. Mist we fall in and out of. What can you see outside your window? What’s in a memory? And can the sky be its keeper? Are the clouds heavy with our fears, desires, hopes, and dreams? Flying is both freedom and fear. Falling is both freedom and fear. ‘For everyone it is different. Some people fly thinking they will be home soon. One more layover and I will be home. Another person is missing that person and is saying soon they will be home.’ — Zhana, Kyiv, Ukraine. February 2020
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Would she still recognise her son?
Building A Monument JANA ROMANOVA — Grandma, why did you tear apart Aunt Lucia’s photographs? She was your sister-in-law, it’s our family in the end! — Who needs them? In the 50s when we lived in a communal flat with your grandfather, your great aunt Lucia brought her friends to live with us for three months without asking. Her mother gave her money for several months of living. She spent it all on restaurants and theaters. She came to us once and said she ran out of money. I had to give her most of our salary and some of my clothes to send her back home. She got married to a sailor. He left her alone with a child soon after that. Her son Oleg was a nice guy, but he started drinking at an early age. She pushed him to enroll in the Pilot Academy, but he got expelled for alcoholism. They both worked at the market. She was a fraud. She cheated people with false weights. Around 10 years ago, her son Oleg died from an alcohol overdose. He was in his 30s. She called me once and said she wants to stop it all, that she is tired. She wanted to be reunited with her son. We all are tired, I said. She should stop talking nonsense. But she stopped taking her medication instead. Several days after that she died in the hospital. — Grandma, did you hate her? — No... It’s just… My heart is torn to pieces.
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Tea With Mom THANA FAROQ
A body identified by a smile.
Mohammed Darwish said once ‘Death doesn’t hurt the dead, it hurts those who are alive.’ The burden of separation weighs heavy on asylum seekers and refugees. For the beloved ones left behind ache in the pains of conflict. In this project, I want to tell the story of my own burden of separation. When the war broke out in 2015, I left Yemen and my mother behind. My intention was to return as soon as possible but with the escalation of daily bombings ravaging the country, this window of possibility was shut. The war never seems to want to end. Since pursuing asylum in the Netherlands, I am not permitted to return to Yemen due to my refugee status. I have not seen my mother since I’ve left. My phone has become a tool of survival helping me deal with my burden. It allows me despite the distance separating us, to become a part of my mother’s daily life. Let’s get lost in time and in the speed of things Fry them gently they’ll know if you are in a rush
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Cars lose their innocence.
Every Feeling FEDERICA IOZZO
Did you put me in a box? ANASTASIA MITYUKOVA People get lost. They disappear. They get off the grid. I don’t recognise someone in a big crowd. Grids, lines, structures. Are you normal? Or you are pretending? Do you follow the norms? Are you following a track or you like to get lost? Do you cross the road when the light is red? Did you cross a border you were not supposed to? Who is the architect of your life? Form follows function. Structures are holding things together. Do you still recognise yourself or you’re looking like everyone else? Do I have ‘agoraregulaphobia’?
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‘Some parents wait much longer than 9 months for their child’ Giselle told me. She has always been thinking of becoming a mother, but with her theater career she thought it wouldn’t have been easy to have a relationship, and she couldn’t easily imagine committing to having a child with someone. Between the ages of 36 until 40, Giselle searched for a donor and she spoke to 20 different men. ‘I thought they were nice people for my child, and we had interesting talks. I spoke with friends, I checked all my friend list, and friends of friends, I also sent emails, if someone knew someone, it was quite a search. I had also a few men that were thinking about it, but then at the end they would say no. So my feelings of this being a very unnatural path got confirmed, I more and more felt that I didn’t know how to do this.’ When she was 40, she felt really stressed, constantly blaming herself for being so late, she would question the steps she took during her research. Every time that she took the courage to phone or email someone, to drink a coffee and sit at this awkward talk, she felt she was forcing something. ‘Should I let go? Should I let it happen?’ After some time she met a man and their relationship lasted only a few months. Shortly after their separation, she found out she was pregnant. She started questioning how to deal with it, if one of the parents didn't want it. After thinking about which decision to take, she realized that in her life the child was more than welcome. So suddenly it became clear what to do and she finally told him that she was planning to keep the child and that she would take care of it herself. Her ex-partner accepted and respected her choice. Giselle felt empowered by the fact that she was going to have a child by herself. And suddenly a Saturday morning, she got cramps, woke up, and there was blood everywhere. Giselle had a miscarriage and lost her child. She was deeply sad, and so shocked. She was suffering but also surrendering. ‘I mourned for 3 months, and then I decided to start again with the research. In the whole process of wanting to become a mother, the miscarriage has given me the trust that I am able to be a mother alone, and also a bit of a higher conscience about life, that you cannot predict it and you cannot control it. Surrendering to what life gives and takes, it gives you the most healing path.’
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He retreats into his childhood room for 15 years.
Toros BATUHAN KESKINER Back in the 1990s, ‘Renault 12 Toros’ was a model specifically designed for Turkish drivers by French Renault’s local representative. Millions of low-income people from Turkey’s Anatolia region were moved by its economic lure and functional features adept for the vast bare lands and farms of its geographical landscape. Since the 1990s, Toros remains a favorite car of the people. For Turkey’s Kurds, Toros, during long 1990s, symbolised the embodiment of state fear, the sudden disappearance of thousands of people by members of dreadful gendar merie intelligence, or JITEM, and a sea of lawlessness that dogged the Kurdish region amid a vicious war between separatist militants and the state. Whenever a white Toros appeared on the horizon in a remote corner of rural Southeast, a village or a town, it forbade a disaster for the targeted. A political figure, a village head, or a simple activist, accused by authorities of abetting the Kurdish insurgents, was driven by the men descended from White Toros, and drawn to an unknown future, mostly to their death, in an empty field or a mountainous area. White Toros ingrained in the collective memory of Turkey’s Kurds as the materialisation of sudden disappearance and death. It is deeply rooted in people’s memory as the carrier of abductions by the very men of the law.
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The Castle KATA GEIBL
Weighing heavy like a stone.
Jean-Paul Belmondo: ‘The situation is difficult, not me.’ — JPB: ‘To do what?’ Anna Karina: ‘Nothing. Just exist.’ JPB: ‘Doesn’t sound like much fun.’ AK: ‘That’s life.’ — AK: ‘I can never have a real conversation with you. You never have ideas, only feelings. That’s not true. There are ideas in feelings.’ — JPB: ‘Ten minutes ago, I saw death everywhere. Now it’s just the opposite, look at the sea, the waves, the sky. Life may be sad, but it’s always beautiful.’
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My mother is left behind in a war zone.
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ANASTASIA MITYUKOVA Between The Lines FEDERICA IOZZO Every Feeling My project revolves around the different layers composing motherhood. I interviewed different women about their relationship to procreation, birth and loss: mothers, women that really wanted to be mothers, women who experienced miscarriage, women who had abortions. I created images that are connected to the women's specific stories and to the concept of ‘loss’ and ‘presence’. www.instagram.com/federicacoseschi
Between The Lines meditates on man’s attempts of putting things in and out of structures challenging freedom and restrictions in the form of a visual research project. Gathered from sources as diverse as press libraries, online forums, public domain archives and the artist’s photographs, Between The Lines is an oblique response to these issues of power. Collecting these images together asks questions about our living relationship with our surroundings — whether we are in control of the processes we have released upon the world, or whether they now control us. anastasiamityukova.ch
ANDERS BIRGER The Shadows In the last months of World War II, millions of German refugees fled their homes, seeking safety in enemy territory. 250,000 of them ended up in Denmark, a country that had been occupied by the nazi army for the last 5 years. As the war ended, a new life began for refugees and Danes alike. 17,000 refugees died in Danish custody. This project is a look into the history of the German refugees in Denmark and their meeting with the Danes. andersbirger.com
JAKOB GANSLMEIER The Fake Masterrace In 1945, shortly before the conquest of Berlin, or rather Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler sent his personal belongings by plane to southern Germany. The plane crashed in a small town in Saxony. For Nazi sympathisers, Nazi nostalgics, one or the other historian and for me begins the treasure hunt for the memories of the so-called master race. But it became also the perfect occasion for people who wanted to fake Nazi relicts, as nobody knows how much of Adolf Hitler’s estate survived the crash. jakobganslmeier.com
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KATA GEIBL The Castle LENA HOLZER The Impossibility Of Future The Impossibility of Future is a project addressed to my friend David Lama who passed away in April 2019. He was a pioneering athlete in the climbing and mountaineering scene. David and his two climbing partners got caught in an avalanche during their descent from Howse Peak in the Canadian Rockies. The Impossibility of Future speaks about our friendship and the aftermath of this loss. lenaholzer.com
XAVER KONNEKER Kodak Knows No Dark Days MARTA IWANEK Falling/Flying
ALEXA VACHON Adonis
Falling/Flying is a meditative short film using dream-like sequences of footage of the sky juxtaposed with conversational dialogue about flying and falling. It poses the question to the audience, ‘What is our relationship to the sky?’ martaiwanek.com
When Nadja was a child, her brother went missing. It started with a night out here and there, then a week, then months. Adonis follows Nadja, now a grown woman, and her family as they trace her brother’s footsteps and dig into a past better left behind. alexavachon.com
Kodak Knows No Dark Days is a video essay investigating forensic odontology and its peculiar intersections with the history of photography, death and the smile. The questions that arise from the forensic practice invite us to radically reconfigure our notion of what it means to smile for a photograph. www.instagram.com/xaverpaul
BATUHAN KESKINER Toros A Renault brand white car, known as ‘White Toros’, was used by JİTEM (Gendarmerie Intelligence and Counter-Terrorism) to kidnap and kill the people, has become the symbol of the ’90s in the Kurdish collective memory. batuhankeskiner.com
Due to the pandemic I am again in the same situation, as when I was 5 years old and took my first photograph. Limited to my own living space, home objects, anything that I can put my hands on in these four walls. Using my childhood image as a starting point I go back in time and create my own castle of imagination. The creation of the images gives me some kind of excitement but the outcome is frustrating because I am thrown back to where I was 25 years ago. katageibl.com
ATLE BLEKASTAD Goodbye Without Leaving From 1989-2009 my brother chose to withdraw from society. He lived in his childhood room, rarely venturing outside. My brother and the room no longer exist. Goodbye Without Leaving is a project about loss and grief, of coming to terms with the past and an investigation of memory as a witness. atleblekastad.com
JANA ROMANOVA Building A Monument In spring 2018 my great-aunt Lucia consciously stopped taking medications that kept her liver functioning, she died several days after that. For a reason that remained unknown, my grandmother Dusya, her sister-in-law, tore apart every single photograph in her family archive and was going to throw them away before I stopped her. In this project I try to restore this archive, thinking about the connection between the act of destruction and love. janaromanova.com
PARTS-UNKNOWN.CO
THANA FAROQ Tea with Mom Thana Faroq uses her phone to explore her own and her mother’s memories and the resilience found in their mother-daughter long-distance relationship between the Netherlands and war-torn Yemen. thanafaroq.com
This project is a partnership with KABK and Creative Court. All images © of the artists.