Apókryphos (2018–19) presents a series of 24 photographs reproduced from Cherine Fahd’s family archive, depicting her Grandfather’s funeral and burial in 1975, when the artist was only two years old. Taken by an unknown photographer, Fahd overlays these images with a numerical system of annotations and footnotes, forensically yet intimately speculating upon the mysteries of the event.
Derived from the Ancient Greek term apókryphos, meaning ‘hidden, concealed or obscure’, Fahd renders public that which is generally kept private: the grief of losing a loved one, and the transgressive act of documenting those who gather to mourn. Offering a visual and literary response to the ritual of mourning, Apókryphos considers the physical ways in which human emotions are visualised, experienced and witnessed. As the artist states:
There is an unwritten contract that grief is private, unphotographable. Even in the family album, it is kept hidden. Family albums celebrate our moments of togetherness; birthdays, holidays and weddings as well as ordinary moments of domestic life. But what of death? What of images of grief and loss?
— Cherine Fahd, 2019
This exhibition is accompanied by the Apókryphos publication, featuring texts by Daniel Mudie Cunningham and Cherine Fahd and published by M.33, Melbourne in 2019.
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
