Timekeepers is a publication by Urša Prek from the Introducing series. Through her work, Urša investigates concepts like history and memory from both a personal as well as a collective perspective. What makes us who we are, what creates our identity when we haven’t experienced our history and can hardly remember (or trust) our own personal memories? With investigative curiosity and a healthy dose of ironic humor she works with various media around these questions, all of which are presented in this publication.
“There are obviously many reasons for people to ‘keep time’, as there are for Urša. Some are rooted in personal experiences that shake the fundamentals of life and the sense of ‘home’, others are based on a curiosity that is more reflective in nature. The need for time-keeping in Urša’s work can easily be mistaken for nostalgia. But where a nostalgic person looks back at the past with warm feelings or with a tinge of sadness for days gone by, Urša is trying to understand this nostalgia, to question it at the root, and even to test it against the here and now. This approach might be called ironic, because it could undermine the very idea of nostalgia, but that is never the goal in itself. Time, memory and the creation of one’s identity from these highly suggestive and ambiguous bits of history that we find in photo albums, video footage and other ‘documentation’ of our past-selves can hardly be called ‘factual’, so a bit of irony is not out of place here.”
(Excerpt from the introduction text by Paul Segers)
UDC-17: Urša Prek - Timekeepers
Editing: Urša Prek & Casper Herselman
Graphic design: ATTAK
Texts: Paul Segers, Urša Prek, Ruth de Vos
Translation: Leila Anderson
ISBN/EAN: 978-90-833388-6-6
Format: 140 x 190 mm (portrait)
Pages: 120
Binding: Softcover