The Witness and The Prophet

This project began with the investigation of a damaged family photograph—its corner cut away, leaving a figure-shaped absence that became both a visual and conceptual entry point. Alongside this physical rupture, the back of the image revealed its connection to the past, the magenta tear mark long with adhesive residue, and mold. This magenta backing, once used as a method to organize and protect family photographs, now bears witness to the very opposite of preservation. It testifies to decay, to loss, and to the quiet evidence of displacement—both familial and historical. This image engages with two opposing forces in record keeping– the inherent tendency of incompleteness and the urgency to keep and the fear to forget.

As the project evolved, I began to explore this missing part of the image using generative tools in Photoshop to reimagine the identity and the life condition of the missing person. What began as a personal speculation became a collaborative process—I invited artists, archivists, vintage collectors, and historians to imagine and reconstruct the missing section from their own perspectives. Instead of loss, this project emphasizes the incomplete nature of historical record. Instead of erasure, this project uses adding as a method to engage with common perception of artistic methods of engaging with archives.  became a layered site of reconstruction, involving not just image-making but also the questioning of authenticity, truth, and ownership in both private and public memory. 

At the core of this project is an interest in materiality—not only of the photographic print and its degradation, but also the paper, adhesive, and color. The specificity of the magenta paper—commonly used as a framing material in East Asian photo preservation practices—became a beacon in the work: a collective signifier of memory and care, but also of the ways in which preservation efforts can accelerate decay. In this way, the family portrait becomes “the prophet,” a vessel of intention and foresight, while the back of the image becomes the past that witnesses a history after bifurcation of the narrative.

Through archival intervention, speculative reconstruction, and narrative layering, The Prophet and the Witness examines the slippage between memory and history, the space between fiction and fact, and the instability of identity when formed through fragmented, altered, or missing records. This project is situated on the ambiguous boundary between restoration and reimagination.