Silent Absolutions

Abstract

The study is a theoretical-visual essay that addresses the contexts of interconnection of documentary photography in wider societal relationships – cultural, social, religious, philosophical, and pedagogical. The sources of the study are the opinions of key philosophers related to the sphere of human being and the participation of a person in human society, service to others, egoism, altruism, existence, borderline situations, and problematisation of happiness. The core of the study comprises an analysis and interpretation of approaches (within the photographic project entitled Damnatio memoriae – Condemnation of Memory) and is divided into several parts: The Stories in Images, Images of Awakening and Self-Discovery, The Inner Memory and Cultural Information, Almost Home and Podolínec or About Loneliness within Ourselves. Institutionally, instrumentally, and biblically, the study is a reflection on an image of stories of the religious congregation of Redemptorists, childhood dreams, historical and cultural continuity, difficult messages on the meaning of suffering, political persecution, and finding new identities and spiritual perspectives. It is a story of human wandering that implies a journey from the individual to the whole, a journey of breaking boundaries and stereotypes, a journey from the profane to the sacral. Through the medium of photography and their theoretical attitudes, the authors build a narrative of personal experience that has become a story of rises and falls, but also a dramatic turnaround, where a human being becomes a different person.