Mexican born photographer Ana Paula Estrada, now living in Brisbane, Australia has recently completed her bookwork Memorandum. Rather like a time capsule the book employs photography, oral history and personal found photographs to record fragments of the lives of seven individuals who are all on the other side of their allotted three score and ten. Estrada sums up the work like this: It is a project about things that were remembered, photographs that were carefully stored and conversations that must never be forgotten. Doug Spowart in his essay accompanying the book quotes John Berger who says, all photographs are there to remind us of what we forget.
What immediately struck me about this book was its quiet authenticity. Estrada has not set out to be clever, super cool or to shock. The work clearly comes from her heart and head and therefore movingly resonates with the reader. Memorandum made me think of my own family and our stories. It reminded me of aging and impermanence and how nothing in the end is solid. It reinforced in me the importance of the now and why I make photographs.
If the purpose of an artwork is to get the viewer or reader to reconsider their place in the world Ana Paula Estrada's Memorandum accomplishes that task admirably.
You can buy a copy of Memorandum HERE.
The book is soft cover / section sewn with exposed spine / stock:120gsm and 300gsm ecostar uncoated / 170 pages, 86 photographs / printing: 4 colour digital / contains separate 8pp booklet, fold out pages and a tipped in 112gsm translucent page / edition: 200 / numbered and signed / self-published 2016.
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