Iris BCarnochan Imagining

Brigitte Carnochan Imagining Then
IRIS
GALLERY
The Iris Gallery of Fine Art Photography

617-895-8951| 970.429.1010 | 413.429-6878
Imagining Then Project Statement

Wer sass nicht bang vor seines Herzens Vorhang?
Der schlug sich auf: die Szenerie war Abschied.
Rainier Marie Rilke
Who hasnt sat fearful before his hearts curtain?

It goes up: another scene of farewell
Translated by Brigitte Carnochan

Old photographs tease out fragments of memorya laugh, a sigh, a conversation the camera interrupts and
then suspends across time. Looking at photographs and documents that came to me after my parents died, Im
struck not only by how much Ive forgotten but also how easily and quickly the past rushes back when called.
The Iris Gallery of Fine Art

info@irisgallery.net
617.895.8951|970.429.1010|413.429.6878
Sometimes forgetting is simply being afraid to remember. I was born in Worms, Germany in 1941 and
reunited in 1976 with my German father, who had disappeared from my life when I was eighteen months old. I
knew he had been a German soldier and that he and my mother had divorced after the war so she could marry my
American stepfather, a man I quickly grew to love as my father. But I knew very little about my German father.
My mother never spoke of him, and I was afraidgiven the possibilitiesto ask.
Like a New Years gift, in January 1976, his letter arrived and took me completely by surprise. I had no
memory of him whatsoeverno image in my head to put with the bold blue script on the paper. Over the
following months we exchanged many letters, and that summer my nineyearold daughter and I visited him and
his family in Connecticut, where he had immigrated in 1952.

It is oddly unsettling to find you have played a role in peoples lives who were strangers to you. And odder still
to sort through the stories suffused with emotion trying to find the real story. The truth, of course, is that all
the stories are realmy fathers story, my mothers story, my stepfathers story. They are authentic and subjective
simultaneously; tell the truth but tell it slant.
Trying now to reclaim my early life by imagining the years from 19411947 heals a wound I hadnt
consciously known I carried. The story remains elusive, however, even though I have a remarkable number of
photos and documents from those years, saved by both of my parents. But however fragile, it is quite real.
In these images, I have drawn a map of my life by taking the random but tangible artifacts my parents left
behind and reordering them within a larger historical context. I have tried to find and shape my story from those
fragments that survived and relate it to other lives, those of people I have never met.

Any life story includes love and loss, hope and fear, success and failure. Some focus on what is lost, others on
what is found, and some will not believe that anything was lost (or found) at all.

Brigitte Carnochan, 2010

617.895.8951|970.429.1010|413.429.6878
Why Remember?
Archival Pigment Ink Print
signed, Brigitte Carnochan
2011 Brigitte Carnochan. All Rights Reserved

617.895.8951|970.429.1010|413.429.6878
Immer Der Gleich


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Love of His Life


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Born in a Dangerous Time


617.895.8951|970.429.1010|413.429.6878
The Day I Brought You Home


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Explain Some Other Time


617.895.8951|970.429.1010|413.429.6878
Casualties of War

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Wars Long Shadow


617.895.8951|970.429.1010|413.429.6878
Three Years, Mostly in the West


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Pense

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He Asked What Id Been Told


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All Is Going Well


617.895.8951|970.429.1010|413.429.6878
No Shelter

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Drive to the Rhine


617.895.8951|970.429.1010|413.429.6878
Beyond the Last Thought


617.895.8951|970.429.1010|413.429.6878
The Scar Remains


617.895.8951|970.429.1010|413.429.6878
How We First Met


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What We Keep

617.895.8951|970.429.1010|413.429.6878
Moved, Address Unknown


617.895.8951|970.429.1010|413.429.6878
My Life Before

617.895.8951|970.429.1010|413.429.6878
Wishful Thinking

617.895.8951|970.429.1010|413.429.6878
Didnt Know the Language-Sorgerecht


617.895.8951|970.429.1010|413.429.6878
Keep Them in Your Heart


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Official Rations

617.895.8951|970.429.1010|413.429.6878
Knight

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Please Try to Understand


617.895.8951|970.429.1010|413.429.6878
Knowing What Shed Seen


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To Hate the Enemy


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Ashes for Dreams


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Everything Altered

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Remembered Steps

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Warbrides Daughter

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Like a Dream

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Between One Life and Another


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Meet You At Pier


617.895.8951|970.429.1010|413.429.6878
The New World


617.895.8951|970.429.1010|413.429.6878
Time Like a River


Iris BCarnochan Imagining

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Brigitte Carnochan Imagining Then

The Iris Gallery of Fine Art Photography

Imagining Then Project Statement

Who hasnt sat fearful before his hearts curtain?

The Iris Gallery of Fine Art

Brigitte Carnochan, 2010

The Iris Gallery of Fine Art

2011 Brigitte Carnochan. All Rights Reserved

The Iris Gallery of Fine Art

Immer Der Gleich

2011 Brigitte Carnochan. All Rights Reserved

The Iris Gallery of Fine Art

Love of His Life

2011 Brigitte Carnochan. All Rights Reserved

The Iris Gallery of Fine Art

Born in a Dangerous Time

2011 Brigitte Carnochan. All Rights Reserved

The Iris Gallery of Fine Art

The Day I Brought You Home

2011 Brigitte Carnochan. All Rights Reserved

The Iris Gallery of Fine Art

Explain Some Other Time

2011 Brigitte Carnochan. All Rights Reserved

The Iris Gallery of Fine Art

2011 Brigitte Carnochan. All Rights Reserved

The Iris Gallery of Fine Art

Wars Long Shadow

2011 Brigitte Carnochan. All Rights Reserved

The Iris Gallery of Fine Art

Three Years, Mostly in the West

2011 Brigitte Carnochan. All Rights Reserved

The Iris Gallery of Fine Art

2011 Brigitte Carnochan. All Rights Reserved

The Iris Gallery of Fine Art

He Asked What Id Been Told

2011 Brigitte Carnochan. All Rights Reserved

The Iris Gallery of Fine Art

All Is Going Well

2011 Brigitte Carnochan. All Rights Reserved

The Iris Gallery of Fine Art

2011 Brigitte Carnochan. All Rights Reserved

The Iris Gallery of Fine Art

Drive to the Rhine

2011 Brigitte Carnochan. All Rights Reserved

The Iris Gallery of Fine Art

Beyond the Last Thought

2011 Brigitte Carnochan. All Rights Reserved

The Iris Gallery of Fine Art

The Scar Remains

2011 Brigitte Carnochan. All Rights Reserved

The Iris Gallery of Fine Art

How We First Met

2011 Brigitte Carnochan. All Rights Reserved

The Iris Gallery of Fine Art

2011 Brigitte Carnochan. All Rights Reserved

The Iris Gallery of Fine Art

Moved, Address Unknown

2011 Brigitte Carnochan. All Rights Reserved

The Iris Gallery of Fine Art

2011 Brigitte Carnochan. All Rights Reserved

The Iris Gallery of Fine Art

2011 Brigitte Carnochan. All Rights Reserved

The Iris Gallery of Fine Art

Didnt Know the Language-Sorgerecht