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Image Versus Knowledge
An exhibition by the French photographer, Emmanuel Berry, titled "Image Versus Knowledge" has opened in the temporary exhibition room in block 12 at the Auschwitz I site. It consists of 42 black-and-white photographs depicting the immediate surroundings of the Auschwitz complex: streams, woods, villages, individual houses, fields, and the urban periphery.
“Very few of the people who visit the Memorial have a chance to leave the site of the camps, if only for a few hours, to wander through the ‘surroundings’ as a way of experiencing this very moving tragedy in a different, more peaceful way. Buses come and go all the time with throngs of travelers, wave after wave, creating a flow of people full of sadness, tears, and incomprehension,” says Berry.
“In showing these pictures I am above all suggesting that people should take a deep breath and do things differently, that they should take a break to open their eyes and their feelings to something that lies a few kilometers away,” he adds.
"A grey, slack and neutral light bathes all represented motifs, taken together in kind of silent and respectful gentleness [...] The geographical and historical context prohibits the look of simple aesthetic delight, disrupts its carelessness." wrote Emmanuel Berry in his brochure about the exhibition.
The exhibition is open in block 12 at the Auschwitz site from 10 AM to 3 PM, until May 14.
