Wounds of Self: Experience, Word, Image, and Identity

Abstract

As spectator I was interested in Photography only for sentimental reasons. I wanted to explore it not as a question (a theme) but as a wound. I see, I feel, hence I notice, I observe, and I think. —Roland Barthes 1,950 mile-long open wound dividing a pueblo , a culture, running down the length of my body, staking fence rods in my fl esh, splits me splits me me raja me raja —Gloria Anzaldúa I would like to look into the relationship among experience, image, word, and time in order to disclose the one who experiences, sees the image, says the word, and remembers. And I am inspired by the photographic image that was once considered merely the mirror of nature but is now a broken mirror in which life, context, and interpretation reside. I am also inspired by the way in which experi-ence, image, word, memory, and self come together in Susan Brison's and Gloria Anzaldúa's powerful words. 1 In the following, I attempt to bring together the image and the word or ways of knowing by understanding those words through the ways we see images. Thus, here I discuss a wound, but not the wounded attachment that according to Wendy Brown makes us merely react to the powers that undermine our freedom, wounded attachments that make us reify ourselves and rename ourselves with the very name given to us by those powers that be, the very name that unnames us. 2