Ever after Hera Gallery’s moving Sites of Memory and Honor BY JOHNETTE RODRIGUEZ

As a child, I saw cemeteries as spooky places, dashing past with eyes closed for fear of what I might see or hear. But in college I discovered that a graveyard could be a good place to walk and to think, to be peaceful, though still curious. Such was my initial response to Sites of Memory and Honor, the current exhibit at Hera Gallery.

Spending more time with the photographs of Dietrich Christian Lammerts, Sylvia de Swaan, Iris Falck Donnelly, and Alexandra Broches (the latter two also co-curated the show) provoked a much wider range of reactions: head-shaking numbness and heart-wrenching sadness, but also intellectual puzzlement, philosophical pondering, and even poignant bemusement.

All of those feelings were spurred on by the artists’ statements and by de Swaan’s journal-like texts that accompany her black-and-white photos. These photos were taken during trips de Swaan made between 1994 and 2000 to Eastern Europe, where she had spent her early childhood. She quotes the 19th-century rabbi Bal Shem Tov as a frame for her journeys: "Memory is the source of liberation, as forgetfulness is the root of exile." And de Swaan comments on her interest in "the layers of history that coexist in the present" when she inserts her own hands into the foreground of her photos. In one, she holds a tiny model of a P-38 bomber in front of a Polish rail yard; in another, two childhood photos with out-of-focus tombstones in a Romanian Jewish cemetery behind them; and in a third, a toy soldier, rifle trained on a statue of two soldiers near the gates of the former concentration camp at Mauthausen, Austria.

Though I was stunned by the photo "Mass Graves," taken at Iasi, Romania, where large black slabs lie domino-like, marking the resting place of 10,000 Jews killed in June 1941 by the "Iron Guard," I felt my mouth go dry at the text next to a photo labeled simply "Bucharest, Romania." The photo shows a crude cross with the word "unknown" on it, and below that, the words "he will rise again, the hope of Romania." De Swaan explains that, despite the "unknown" designation, everyone knows this is the grave of the vicious dictator Ceaucescu, and she notes: "Some come to spit; some to lay flowers."

Historical references also crop up in Falck Donnelly’s photos. In "Morts à Auschwitz," taken at a Paris cemetery, a cluster of small white headstones with photos embedded in them are stacked, like family photos, one behind the other; and in "Ten Dead Men: Memorial to the Hunger Strikers," in Derry, Ireland, 10 white crosses stand in front of a banner that proclaims, "My brother is not a criminal." Intimations of disappearances occur in the four photos from Xela, Guatemala. Stacked tombs with identifications on the end show walled-up crypts with no name at all or names scratched out. And in all of the Xela photographs, the flowers left in sconces on the walls are dried up and skeletal.

Dietrich Christian Lammerts also tackles these symbolic juxtapositions in the 10 photos presented here, a portion of a three-year project and book, Grave Matters, done in collaboration with Mark C. Taylor, which documents the gravesites of 150 writers, thinkers, artists, and musicians. Taylor writes the philosophical statement that introduces these photos, and he concludes: "Gazing into the dust and ashes of these graves and their images, we learn that nothing — absolutely nothing — lasts."

One could argue that the reputations of these literary or artistic icons have outlived them, but there is indeed something quite humbling about seeing Frank Lloyd Wright’s name and dates (1869-1959), elegantly formed in wrought iron, but lying, almost cast aside, on a bed of pine straw. Or ivy climbing up the modest rounded headstone of Van Gogh. Or the urban setting of Walt Whitman’s crypt, surrounded by broken-up granite blocks and the twisted roots of trees covered in carved graffiti. Or Camus’s marker all but hidden by Mediterranean shrubbery gone wild.

Broches includes a few famous tombstones (Delacroix, Matisse, Chopin) among the multitudes of 4x6" and 5x7" images she has mounted into two tableaux, one with black-and-white photos and the other with color photos. The first grouping has close to 85 photos, the second more than 150. I found that the best way to view these was in a kind of do-it-yourself panorama, moving along each row, back and forth, stopping now and again to study an image or making a mental note to return to it. This method created interesting sequences and contrasts. For example, in the black-and-white group, my eye could travel from an elaborate memorial to the family Marchesi to a tiny flat plaque with a name, a photo, and some stones around it; from a roadside cross with candles surrounding it to a Civil War cannon at Gettysburg.

The color photos are even more indicative of place: the pyramids of Egypt, the makeshift memorials to Station fire victims, the Vietnam War Memorial in DC. Variations in topology are also broad, from desert sand to lush tropical vegetation, from mountain range to oceanside to traffic circles. And in a few, the photographer is present, her shadow in the corner of the frame. Like Donnelly, Broches has been "fascinated by what [cemeteries] tell us about the society that has created them." And she draws us into that fascination with her.

This is not, in any way, a morbid exhibit. The different customs of commemoration, the desire to give substance to grieving, the intent to honor well-known individuals or anonymous victims — all of this and more are touched on by the work of these four photographers. But, like a walk in a cemetery, you get out of it what you bring to it.

Sites of Memory and Hono at Hera Gallery through April 17.

An illustrated lecture, Frozen Glory, by documentary filmmaker Patti Cassidy, will take place at the gallery on Thursday, April 15 at 7:30 p.m. Call (401) 789-1488.