Richard (installation view)

Framed photo of belt

2014 Portrait Framed

Fabric Screen

Plinth with belt

speakers

 

Image credit: Linda Wachtel

Richard

 

Richard was a survivor of three concentration camps.

 

He never married nor fathered a child.

 

At the age of 94 he was finally ready to tell his story

 

He gifted his words and most valuable possessions to me

 

with a proviso

 

that I pass it on for future generations "to know"

 

I collaborated with him for a photographic shoot

 

he understood my  language and embraced the symbolic

 

Resigned to his mortality,

 

he recognized the plinth as a stand-in for museum display

 

with his most valued possession, his belt,  exhibited upon it as hero.

 

He loved the image we made, Richard 2014

 

6 weeks later he died.

 

I have his words,

 

I have his belt- the only possession he retained from his beloved Poland

 

I have the perfume bottle he identified as "the scent of my sister"

 

I have his essence

 

True to my promise

 

I present Richard, 2016

 

a representation, a memorial, a monument

 

a testament, a legacy and an honour.

 

BIOGRAPHY:

 

Hedy Ritterman has academic achievements in psychology, design, photography and fine arts and has integrated these with her life experiences to create meaningful artworks that address the human condition in today's world. Most recently she won the prestigious Human Justice Award in the 63rd Blake Prize with a powerful photographic portrait of a Holocaust survivor taken just a few weeks before his death. Her photographic works have been shortlisted in numerous prizes, such as Josephine Ulrick & Win Schubert Photography Prize (Qld), Olive Cotton Award (NSW), National Photographic Purchase Award (NSW)and she won the 2003 Linden Postcard Award (Vic) and 2005 Still Life Award at the Kodak Photographic Salon (Vic).

 

In 2014 she was invited to show internationally with The Global Centre for Drawing in the exhibition  'Location" Crossing the Line #2 exhibition in Dubai and in 2015 she exhibited in "Facsimilie" Crossing the line #3 in Florence, where she presented a talk and participated in world renowned workshops, all of which was reviewed in Studio International.

 

Hedy is a founding member of an art collective, The Contemporary Collective -TCC- that provides a platform for artists to critically engage in a broad spectrum of contemporary issues.