In this series of nine images Julia used archival family photographs, taken by her grandfathers at the beginning of WWII. These images are an attempt to look at archival albums and to raise questions about them. She photographed images from the albums onto slide film, then projected the slides into different spaces where she rephotographed them. By projecting slides into spaces Julia is experimenting with the idea that these images had been erased from people’s memories – because they did not want to or could not remember – and are now being rediscovered.
“Always the same image” was a caption her paternal grandfather had written next to a photograph of a group of German soldiers advancing to the front. The image of the tank was taken in Poland, Julia’s maternal grandfather wrote “Invasion of Poland, September 1939” on the back of the photo. The caption next to the photograph of the Black man reads: “Prison camp near Nancy, 1940, an especially good example”. The expression of defiance and dignity on the man’s face lasts forever, despite the handwritten caption which objectifies the man. The “shadow soldier” and ruins are sandwiched slides, and are a comment on the insanity and destructiveness of war.
