PRESENCE OF AN ABSENCE
Sophie Ernst collaborated with Taha Mehmood on an investigation into the relationship between objects, experiences and identity. For their installation Ernst and Mehmood travelled to Indonesia. The colonial encounter between Europe and Asia left thousands of stories in its wake. Intimate, regional and national stories in which the memory are passed on. Storytelling is important in any community. Retelling of a story allows its circulation along a social network. What kind of stories get remembered and what gets overlooked or forgotten determines the kind of self. Stories reiterate the fading shadows of a past, revisit impressions left by an experience and rearrange objects idiosyncratically. Stories transfer meaning, create alternate systems of knowledge and help create maps of intimate encounters.