Shadows of Memory: Pictures and Stories of Migrants from Richard Mosse to Georges Perec

Abstract

The following pages present the analysis of a crucial issue for the genre of the photo-text, that of migrations intended as stories of wandering and hope and respect to which the literary word and the photographic image are still questioning, especially for what concerns the opportunity and the modalities of narration and memory. Two cases distant in time and space seem to offer a reflection on the inexhaustible question, and above all on the way in which it can be tackled without falling back into the often sterile ground of documentary or memorial narration: Incoming (2017) by the photographer Richard Mosse and Récits d’Ellis Island. Histoires d’errance et d’espoir (1980), the work of Georges Perec and Robert Bober.