Visual narrative of a post-communist estate: transgression of memory and the ruins of community

Abstract

This article discusses the visual identity of a post-communist estate in Poland and the role of memory and the remembering of the communist past. Phenomenological concepts derived from Paul Ricoeur and Maurice Merleau-Ponty are employed in the analysis of the post-communist identity of Cementownia, a community and place observed through the lens of a video camera. Through the interpretation of videoed perceptions of the place, interviews and staged recordings, the performative work of memory is defined, while visual anthropology frames a reflection on ruination, which characterizes the condition of the community. Film-making is applied here as a method and a critique of the schizophrenic position of post-communist societies, suspended between past and present and consequently between the discourse of capitalist advancement and the experience of impoverishment. A self-reflective analysis shows that the process of transition from communism has resulted in social inequalities which relate to the political degradation of the meaning of a past alienated from the post-communist discourse of history.