Traumatic Tourism
Traumatic Tourism is a body of work that deals with historically significant sites and their transformation into tourist attractions. The way history is being diluted down to “historical designated” spots became evident to me while observing and photographing how tourists experience, interact and move through these sites and memorials so quickly. In such places, tourism, photography and self-identification seem to meet and fuse under a specific approach to history.
In many cases, typical activities of tourists who visit such sites, will be just like of any other “points of interest” and will include taking photographs and being photographed, usually with the site or memorial in the background. Such photographs not only confirm that the photographer and company were in a particular place in a specific time, but also aim to capture the state of pleasure that this activity entailed.
