Fragmentated bodies. A single limb. Sculptures with backbones connected to tiny body parts. Hidden in plain sight. Rather than being vertebrae, the sculptures become an inversion of spinelessness. A double negation of double meaning. ”Having no backbone”. ”Weak and purposeless”.
“Haunting is not the same as being exploited, traumatized, or oppressed, although it usually involves these experiences or is produced by them”. Haunting happens after violence has been done. Violence involves violation. Haunting happens after, due to, violation. Haunting is that animated state where repressed or unresolved violence makes itself known. It can sometimes be very direct. Other times more oblique. It is sometimes recognisable.
Inside Zahra Zahvareh’s 360 video, I start to wonder. Am I the ghost? A bodyless gaze. An ocular experience. I find myself in a doll pram, in a foreign, dreamlike environment. Without connection to my own physique. An organ without a body.
Haunting is that animated state where repressed or unresolved violence makes itself known. It can be direct. Other times oblique. Sometimes recognisable. Body parts. Their absence. Unheimlich. Home becoming unfamiliar. The unfamiliar becoming home. Singular, often repetitive instances. Bearings are lost. ”The over-and-done-with bones alive, when what’s been in your blind spot comes into view.”
A man sits in some kind of workshop or storage. He is wearing a paper mask. I approach as if in a dream. In a dolls pram. The man is handling the spined sculptures. The VR-experience is no longer purely ocular. A voice recounts stories of fathers who condemn their sons.
What has been in your blind spot comes into view. The unfamiliar becomes home. In Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard reflects on the biblical story of Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son, Isaac. Abraham, “a knight of faith” is willing to give up what is most precious to him. In obedience to God’s command. The act defies rationality and ethical norms.
Abraham’s faith transcends human understanding. Kierkegaard contrasts Abraham’s faith with an ethical perspective where sacrificing Isaac is morally wrong. Abraham’s choice represents a leap of faith. An unwavering commitment to God. Although absurd and inconsistent. The paradox of faith. It requires existential commitment beyond reason, ethics, and society’s expectations. No one ever asks Isaac. Abraham is prepared to violate universal ethical principles. For the sake of divine command. The story emphasizes the personal, individual nature of faith. A deeply paradoxical and existential struggle. Kierkegaard’s reflection on Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac holds many layers of trauma. An inner conflict between faith and loss. Abraham’s choice defies reason, ethics, and his natural instincts as a father. Trauma confronts experiences that challenge self-understanding. The moral compass in spin. No one asks Isaac.
“Why did he eat his child?” asks the voice. “Because he thought the child would kill him first... No, he didn’t eat him. He tore him apart and threw him in the trash”
No one asks about Isaac.
Cronos ate his children due to the prophecy that one of them would overthrow him. Cronos, leader of the Titans, had overthrown his own father, Uranus, and feared that his offspring would do the same. To prevent destiny, he swallowed each of his children at birth. A leap of faith. Cronus eating his children indicates the nature of time. Time, like Cronus, consumes everything in its path. Youth, opportunities, legacies. Driven by fear of being engulfed by one’s own creation. It is consumed. The passage of time.
“No way! You’re confused”, the voice exclaims. “That was someone else. You’ve got all your stories mixed up.”
The fear of being engulfed by one’s own creation. The passage of time. Zeus' ultimate overthrow of Cronus signifies the triumph of renewal and growth over the stagnation and erosion. Caused by time. Cronus' fear of being overthrown by his children reflects a deep psychological anxiety about loss of control, power, and identity. Triggers for trauma.
Devouring one’s children might also symbolize how trauma can consume a person. Creating obsession. Preventing emotional growth and healing. Swallowing one’s children. Repression. Suppression. Memories and experiences are buried to avoid facing them. But like Zeus ultimately emerges from Cronus, unprocessed trauma will resurface. A spine bone. Behind a mask. In a drawer of the desk. Demanding attention, healing and transformation.
“Haunting is a frightening experience. It always registers the harm inflicted or the loss sustained by a social violence done in the past or in the present. But haunting, unlike trauma, is distinctive for producing a something-to-be-done. Indeed, it seemed to me that haunting was precisely the main of turmoil and trouble, that moment (of however long duration) when things are not in their assigned places, when the cracks and rigging are exposed, when the people who are meant to be invisible show up without any sign of leaving, when disturbed feelings cannot be put away, when something else, something different from before, seems like it must be done.”
In the end, the ghost or spectre representing a violation is proof that the violation happened. Hidden in plain sight. Demanding attention. Transformation. It haunts us because we think we are done with the past. But the past is not done with us.
Jonatan Habib Engqvist
° All quotes from Avery F. Gordon, Ghostly Matters: Haunting and the Sociological Imagination
