Shang Salah




Genealogy Of Personal Memory 


The genealogy of personal memories is an ongoing research and combined visual arts/film project, in its early stages of conception, about documenting memory and personal stories to redefine what is historical sociocultural change- from the perspective of personal tales and how they impact us and generations beyond us. The research aims to depart from the national all-encompassing studies and texts that attempt to define the self as a result of qualitative and quantitative data but rather offer an alternative approach, where the self’s own narratives and memories define the environment around them and establish the generation’s archetype that come after them.

As individuals, the characters and ideologies we lead are a result of our memories and how those came to be conceived. The past that truly shapes our lives- not determined by a book or history but by a genealogical line of memories and archives that in turn form who we are, why we are, and how we act. This lineage is then passed on to those after us, how we perceive our past will affect how they will interact with their future. 

The research will come into action by documenting personal narratives to connect the dots of the why and how. This will offer an experimental visual showcase of familial/community history and analysis of the self. 

 This research is nfluenced by my readings of postmodernist and deconstructionist philosophies of the mid-twentieth century that focus on generational psychoanalysis and reconsider the holders of power throughout history.  
  


I am building my research forward from the theories of two particular philosophers, Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault. Both argued against the traditionalized notions of archiving and treating history- criticising it for being elitist, and segregative in how it observed historical material in terms of pure data. In their different ways, they provided frameworks for contextualizing and practising the menial work around archiving and historical research. Despite being mid-twentieth-century philosophers, these ideas are particularly relevant to dissecting the information overload of our contemporary climate. When at the tip of a finger we can access all of the information about anywhere and anytime, it becomes difficult to fully understand what was real to that time and the people in it and what is merely an observatory analysis of it. This is when individual history is a needed means for understanding social change and how certain concepts emerge within communities. 

Jacques Derrida




Based on a lecture of his, Jacques Derrida published “Archive Fever” in 1995 where he guides a meditation on remembrance, religion, time, and technology - all occasioned by a deconstructive analysis of archiving. The archival concept has played a pivotal role in numerous critical debates - a place of origin, yet of perpetuity, a place of stasis and order, yet of discovery, the notion of archive houses a complex of diverse, and often disparate, meanings. The archive would seem to be a public entity, yet it is stocked with personal, even intimate artefacts of private lives. This inherent tension between public and private inaugurates, argues Derrida, an inquiry into the human impulse to preserve, through technology as well as tradition, both a historical and a psychic past.

The work of Derrida questions the relationship between the archive, power, and the public. In the book, the epistemology of the archive is analyzed through Freudian terms, notably trans-generational memory–the memory of cultural experiences. What evidently stands out about Archive Fever to my project, is that Derrida argues what we constitute as archives are shaped by those in power who have maintained and designed the archive.  

Thus the ‘archive’ cannot be objective in its gathering of evidence. Its structure is created by those who have been moulded through their own culture, history, and biology. Sometimes the fact that there is no objective archive/historical fact/memory can be agonizing, but in the case of identity that can't be defined through national empirical statements, it is a freeing concept that can lead to a connection of shared stories further than textbook years, dates, and names.

For instance, in my case, I am in a position of power over trans-generational archives of my family and I am in control of how they are viewed and told- this includes physical materials and verbal stories. So, following Derrida’s ideas, I am able to set forward a new piece of  visual “history” that I and my cousins have blossomed out of, which then explains our stance in the culture we are in and the stance of those similar to us. 



 

Michel Foucault



Where Derrida was inspired by Freud, Foucault was influenced by Nietzche. He believed that genealogy doesn't exist to identify the origins of things or identify a continuous development, instead, it exists to define the so-called “errors” or “accidents” of the past that as a result bring up the concepts we find valuable. To him, history isn't some form of continuous development but is actually filled with irregularities and unreliability.  In his 1969 book “The Archeology of Knowledge” Foucault also created a framework for analysing and assembling the archives of history. Importantly, the archive for him is a set of relations that enables statements or things to continue to exist. 


His framework summarized: 



1- Don’t treat documents as what has exactly happened but rather as a talked-about text that can help us understand the people’s views of the time.
 
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 2- Don’t focus on studying or creating a pattern out of the documents but study the irregularities and find the statements that make the most appearances. He called this “Discursive Formation” and that the job of history is to unpack the formation which specific statements have gained regularities under.





3- Analyse the repeated statements of a certain period of time to define their function. Do not spend time finding out who created the statement, as we don’t need to know where they come from anymore. We should understand how the statement accumulates to understand how a society is transformed and organized.    
4- Find the gaps in the discourse and the discourse's autonomy over its specific individual names or inventors or a singular coherent narrative.
5- Rather than solely focusing on an individual, focus on the environment of that individual to be able to see historical change in terms of how discourse develops and accumulates. It is a history of social change. 

So using Foacult’s frameworks supports de-encoding the inconsistencies and gaps found within individual and familial histories, analysing those over numerical consistencies will provide a much more autosomal outcome of the history, especially in its relation to discourse that maintained legacy over generations. 


   


Carl Jung



Many other schools of thought are important to consider when working with the intimacy and delicacy of the archive, and most vitally a study of psychoanlysis in relation to generational memory aids a lot in the process. 

In his book Structure & Dynamics of the Psyche Carl Jung said “The collective unconscious - so far as we can say anything about it at all - appears to consist of mythological motifs or primordial images, for which reason the myths of all nations are its real exponents. In fact, the whole of mythology could be taken as a sort of projection of the collective unconscious... We can therefore study the collective unconscious in two ways, either in mythology or in the analysis of the individual.”

According to Jung our deepest beliefs, instincts, and spiritual behaviours are embedded within the unconsciousness that is inherited rather than based on an individual experience. The collective unconscious is formed by archetypes – universal psychic structures that constitute the archaic heritage of humanity. So an archetype is a predisposition way someone is born with, to think, feel, act, etc.. in a specific way. Archetypes' existence can only be recognized from the images and symbols that they manifest and can’t be directly perceived.

Archetypes influence the behaviour and typical experiences of everyone. So on certain occasions, archetypes manifest certain images, thoughts, feelings, and ideas in people despite their geographic, race, gender, or other differences. Archetypes have evolved over long periods of time and are found in everyone, they are expressed individualistically. Jung believes that individuals need to confront the materials of their unconscious otherwise the individual would be fragmented.

In this case of visual depictions, we would confront the archetypes which have manifested themselves in the forms of motifs and symbols of belonging to understand how they develop the self. 



This continuous research will go hand-in-hand with the creation of experimental films and a range of visuals arts porjects utilizing archives, recollections, and subjective stances. Through an intimate personal outlook this will bring about a new kind of visual history in the arts.  


The archives maintain their integrity and the people behind them will receive the platform to share their history.



Beyond The Mountains


A cross-disciplinary film and visual arts project, on how I, a Kurdish Iraqi woman, have developed and maintained my idea of the self, rooted in my familial memorabilia and heritages, even when living beyond my land of mountains.

Beyond The Mountains is my personal application and exploration of my self-titled research “Genealogy of Personal Memory” through my family’s archives. 

By using my research of postmodernist schools of thought on memory, personal history and the archive, I built a framework of how to narrate and handle my personal history. 

I narrate my recollections of my family’s most memorable moments, how I evolved into the being I am as a result of my generational identity, the motifs that I have kept with me, and the patterns of actions I continue to act on as a result of my upbringing. 

The mountains are the space where the memories, archives, heritages, and pasts of my family reside. There I explore the development of my identity and notion of self while having spent my first years of adulthood outside of my home country.

As I embark on a journey of return to the place where this story begins, I reflect on my familial tales of our origins, the resistance of heritage, and how I belong to this multi-generational memorabilia. Expressed through my Kurdish-Iraqi family’s archives, memories, and tales.







 
The project utilized archives across generations of photographs, videos, letters, books, furniture, and oral stories along with methodological documentation of the family homes, conversations, and family events. 

By collecting, cataloguing, documenting so many different variables, and understanding the archive and how it became the archive, I was able to define who I am and why I am. Why I recall certain things and neglect others. Why I symbolize some elements and not others.

This project was built to reform my understanding of individuality and how it connects with a lineage of joys and traumas through a subjective lens rather than a national viewpoint which is hyper-focused on dates, events and empirical value.

A big part of my project was constant videography and audio recordings, and trying out new techniques with post-production softwares to lay out the visuals in a poetically experimental style. I played with the archive, using post-production tools and manual scanning methods- breaking it, collaging it, non linearly applying it together, stripping it of its context and redistributing it visually. None of the actual original archives were experimented with but rather copies or digital scans were. The archives maintain their integrity.




 



The story of my family, individuality and belonging as discovered through the archive



The Almala Khidhirs. 

My seventh great grandpa moved from the Syrian Ottoman Empire to the small town of Shingal/Sinjar situated at the border of now Iraq and Syria. The Almala Khidhirs began life there for decades to come. Men of religion, farmers, writers, and politicians. 

The Almala Khidhirs even after leaving the town for cities became synonymous with Shingal, now called Shingalis as a nickname.
 


Decades later they left Shingal, different members moved to other cities and countries, and Shingal only became a symbol related to the family. The members took Shingal with them despite their travels.









Similarly, I left and moved to a separate country but never disregarded or was unattached to the Shingali and Kurdish-Iraqi identity. That is the conflict of belonging you are born and are attached to somewhere that is difficult to physically remain in. Wars, conflict and more displace you and you only have memories left.



I departed from the land and moved elsewhere but still, my focus is all on Kurdishness and my origins even when unintended. 






The pomegranate has become my symbol of cultural identity and belonging. The pomegranate, a symbol of cultural beauty and femininity.



Archives have helped through the pains of nostalgia.



We as people leave, we return, and leave again, a cycle of never truly staying. But with each time you leave nostalgia grows and identity signifies. With every time you return, you collect more memories to hold onto for your next departure. 

Archives are needed to understand origins.

Because of the varying elements of Kurdish and Iraqi history that have led to the destruction of histories, both physical and symbolic, there is a collective conscious need to maintain the remains of the past.




The generational memories that have created me along with all of its symbols are the reason why I am. 









Within the Almala Khidhir‘s story, there is a greater national history intertwined. A national history of displacement, immigration, and being part of a diaspora that is running away from conflict.



Cultural resistance through the form of collecting, maintaining, and curating the archives saves identities. Especially identities that have gone through centuries of erasure.




   
Kurdistan and Iraq have lost so much of their abstract and physical past because of wars, what remains is fragile and in danger. Through conflict, opportunities arise to displace histories and cultures from their original homes. Because of the wars in Iraq, it is estimated that more than tens of thousands of artefacts have been lost, stolen, or damaged. When so much is lost, maintaining the personal is more important than ever. 




Memory and history are fluid; they take shape and structure in different ways and are not objective truths to never be readapted or questioned. Hence, the experimental attitude to the visuals, there is no objectivity but each person approaches the past differently depending on their context.

My family’s lens on Kurdish and Iraqi history, their maintenance of the past, and the value of sentimentality led me to be protective over history- especially my side of history.




I end this project on a note on the resistance of memories and the strength of cultures as manifested through individuals and their personal documentation of life and the past.

Perhaps my great-grandpa’s diary entries are dramatized, perhaps my illiterate grandma's rants about the past are factually inaccurate, and perhaps my entire family’s story about our origins is fabricated. But still, the word of mouth, the sensationalized stories, and the histories that lack factual ground hold just as much value and truth to me than any other objective reality.