Re-Photography as Documentation and Understanding of the “Dirty War” in Argentina: G. Germano’s Photo Project “Absence”

The article considers a special form of photographic practice that may be in demand in sociology — repeated photography or re-photography. This is an act of repeating a photograph of the same place/character/practice, with a time lag between the two images, a look at a certain object “then and now”. The possibilities of re-photography were primarily used by researchers of the urban environment, demonstrating vivid variability. In the social sciences, the secondary use of visual documents can serve the purposes of education, policy, practice and advocacy. The format of re-photography can be heuristic in the direction of instrumentalization of temporality and social change. It is not devoid of methodological reflection, providing for a procedural sequence of the techniques undertaken [reflected and socially designated focus of comparison; archival evidence; technically justified stand point; idea of the applied task]. But there are also ethical issues that arise when re-photographing individuals. Field research using re-photography in social sciences can have multiple purposes - to document the rhythm of changes in a specific location based on the primary image, to generate social meanings in the torn fabric of social events. In relation to the latter, the article analyzes the Argentine photo project by G. Germano “Absence”, which thematizes the consequences of the dictatorship of the military junta [1976-1983] in Argentina. The technique of re-photography used by Germano in the series of diptychs produces the affect of a time torn apart by a traumatic event, in which some are destined to disappear and not grow old with their loved ones. The diptychs not only potentially evoke an individual “punctum”, they also provide the format of an open cultural stage through which viewers can access collective forms of mourning and empathy. Germano’s re-photography project fits into various strategies of artistic resistance that act out the elimination of collective trauma through the creation of new aesthetic proposals. The art of photography is re-politicized, seeking to undermine the social and cultural representations of the post-authoritarian discourse, which has never provided Argentine society with an exhaustive historical grand narrative.

re-photography, re-shooting, visualization of historical trauma, G. Germano, temporality, social change