Oblivion. HD video, 00:03:58; 2012
I would like to forget, I would like to remember. Political, historical and economical aspects meet in a remote forest clearing in Latvia, occupied by the Soviet Union after WW2 till 1991.
The film shows fragments of images from the Cold War time. I clean a Soviet army propaganda art relief of debris, moss and weeds. The exposed concrete work, tipped over by vandalism or the forces of nature, depicts the history of the Soviet army from felt-capped warriors and cavalry to troops which operate space-age airplanes and missiles.
Oblivion refers to quotidian chores such as cleaning and organizing: I sweep, brush and wipe. It is not a solemn ritual such as an unveiling of a sculpture. The concrete relief is not a celebrated art work; it is a redundant and forgotten piece of propagandist representations. The overgrown site where the relief is situated used to be full of activity; part of the arms race of the super powers. I want to bring forth the abandoned plaque in its cracked condition. What information does it carry about the era when it was made, and, on the other hand, about the present time? How do we look at ideological images of the past and how does it relate to the ideological images of today?
The focus of the video work concerns the ways in which the past is remembered or forgotten. In a wider context the work deals also with the issue of how and why objects, as signs of the past, are taken care of, neglected or destroyed.
View on Vimeo: (https://vimeo.com/57288659)