What Continues to Leave

Vestige (trail)

The trays of “Japanese food” in the display case are props. These items are synthetic and cannot be eaten. The glass front of the display case is cracked and is situated behind the store’s windows. The singular trail of an odd white substance has been sprayed across the surface of this window and the stone facade.

Vestige: what is left, what has been left of the past in the present –a suspended present? This has been photography’s historical edifice. The trace (a trail) –what remains but continues to leave, to absent itself toward its past.

To bring one’s senses to what is depicted in this would involve the work of memory. This would be to anticipate the way that something has become past and has lingered on. Of all the senses, smell most forcefully and immediately locates its source. It accepts that it is of both the world and the body. That a photograph can pose for the senses is because pictorial space is composed of more than just what is seen. It can offer touch and what is not visible can be felt. Likewise, we cannot see time, but we feel its passage. To remember is to anticipate the touch of what continues to leave.

Howard Ursuliak