16: POLAROID

Darío Rodríguez, writer and booktuber [Colombia]

[Translation (subtitles): Carlos Ortega]

Transcripción:

“Sebald was a photographer. He included amateur photographs in his books. In Austerlitz he mentions that photography is a hallway that acts as a meeting point for the living and the dead,  so that some can pretend to conquer the forgetfulness of the others. Sebald’s favorite pictures are polaroids, because they are nourished by the supposed joy of the instant that is hunted, of what, in appearance, may never end. It may be worth mentioning a testament of sorts left by the german writer. I am talking about After Nature, his last published book, where he invites to pay a visit the city of Manchester in the 1960’s, rotten by modernity and coexisting with the grid of a 19th century town. Sebald’s last voyage is actually his last polaroid. Involuntary testimony of these times in which every photograph, or every image is fleeting, instantaneous, and the mourning of an old Icarus, wingless but aware of a slow fall, fair, towards the spittles of death.”