My master thesis from University of Southern Denmark
is part of a dissertation about memories at the Glasgow School of Art.
“Synopsis for a dissertation by Maria Theresa Moerman Ib on the unreliability of photography as memory, which will discuss Kasia Larsen’s documentary short film Fragments of Me:
The notion of photography as an indexical representation of reality has been contested by philosophers, psychologists and critics for decades. Nevertheless, it is still the closest thing we have to a concise depiction of historical events. In spite of subjectivity, framing, manipulation etc., we still rely on what we see in a photograph as authentic despite evidence to the contrary.
Domestic photographs are especially vulnerable to this assumption. But do family photographs reveal what really happened? Or do they consciously choose to censor unacceptable versions of the past that are at odds with the image we want to present to the world and to ourselves? Are family photographs adequate representations of personal history? Or do they in fact merely appeal to our sense of nostalgia and create flawed memories? Can a photograph tell us anything about the past? Can memory?
By looking at different forms of photographic representation in documentary, cinema and art, this paper explores the connection between the unreliability of photography and human memory in the domestic realm. If both photography and memory fail as representations of reality, how, then, do we document our past? Would a truthful photographic representation show the way something happened or rather the way we remember it?”
KASIA 
Synopsis for a dissertation by Maria Theresa Moerman Ib on the unreliability of photography as memory, which will discuss Kasia Larsen’s documentary short film Fragments of Me:
The notion of photography as an indexical representation of reality has been contested by philosophers, psychologists and critics for decades. Nevertheless, it is still the closest thing we have to a concise depiction of historical events. In spite of subjectivity, framing, manipulation etc., we still rely on what we see in a photograph as authentic despite evidence to the contrary.
Domestic photographs are especially vulnerable to this assumption. But do family photographs reveal what really happened? Or do they consciously choose to censor unacceptable versions of the past that are at odds with the image we want to present to the world and to ourselves? Are family photographs adequate representations of personal history? Or do they in fact merely appeal to our sense of nostalgia and create flawed memories? Can a photograph tell us anything about the past? Can memory?
By looking at different forms of photographic representation in documentary, cinema and art, this paper explores the connection between the unreliability of photography and human memory in the domestic realm. If both photography and memory fail as representations of reality, how, then, do we document our past? Would a truthful photographic representation show the way something happened or rather the way we remember it?
I surely didn’t recognize that. Learnt a thing new today! Thanks for that.