The Impossible Remembering in Walid Raad's Artwork “Secrets in the Open Sea” (1994/2004)

Abstract

Walid Raad engages with the traumatic events of the Lebanese war (1975–1990) in a personal and poetic way in his artwork 'The Atlas Group: Secrets in the Open Sea' (1994/2004). He repeatedly calls it a document exploiting the inherent traits of the photographic media, and elaborate storytelling to expose the gap between verification and comprehension of historical knowledge. The possibility of verifying this artwork as a document shatters quickly under the inquisitive gaze of a spectator; yet reading it in relation to the ethical understanding of history, as expressed in the philosophical works of Giorgio Agamben, reinstates Raad's work as an ethical platform.