Return
with Saskia Kahn
“Thinking about really painful histories isn’t always healing for everyone - making art out of it [is what] helps me... and is cathartic ... like an exorcism. ”
Stop for Poppies, 2024 Chemigram Gelatin Silver Print
Alongside the road between Liepaja and Riga, Latvia, are poppy fields in full bloom during the summer solstice. The poppy is the flower of Palestine and is often used symbolically as a marker of remembrance of bloodshed; it can grow on lands where the soil has been churned due to bombs and killings. Here, the ground and dirt occupy most of the space within the frame, a nod to the importance of the earth's memory.
In this conversation between Taya Mâ & Saskia Kahn, Saskia shares her journey with ancestral healing, which led her to return to her family’s former home in Latvia for grieving, honoring, reclamation and release. She reflects on the embodied nature of generational trauma, and the role that art can play in embodied, intergenerational healing.
How does art support you to engage with ancestral places, events and stories?
Riga, Latvia Dance (Take me to the place where my ancestors were born), 2024 Chemigram Gelatin Silver Print
Though not a dancer, I often feel that moving my body freely in public is an act of rebelling against hiding. Here, I am dancing in Riga, the city where my family and kin were hunted. My joy was a marker of personal victory.
Rose and Minna at the Libau Harbor Family Archive, circa 1939
My grandmother, Rose Saks, and her Aunt Minna Saks sitting at the Liepaja Marina. 56°30'44.5"N 21°00'46.0"E. The shadow of Minna's boyfriend and his camera rest on Minna's lap making it hard to see that she had a wooden leg. Bobi describes this photo for the Shoah Foundation in 1994.
Interviewer [3:26:59] : Could you tell us about this?
Kahn [3:27:00] (Inhales sharply) Ya! That was a wonderful afternoon with my Aunt Minna! And, one of her boyfriends took the picture. We were at the Liebau Seehafen and it’s a port. We had a beautiful harbor there. It was really great. I can smell the water when I look at the picture! And we had such a good time! My Tante Minna wore an electric blue silk dress and she had a carved ebony rose right on her collar. And I wore a pink dress with black dots, and I had terrible eczema. Look how I hide my hands. That would save my life! Probably had lots of fish this morning. And, umm, I really remember that day. I really had a good time with my Aunt Minna. We listened to records together and sang all the greatest hits. It was great.
Chaim Saks' Passport Photo, 2024 Chemigram Gelatin Silver Print
In the Riga State Archives, I was able to view the passport photos of my Latvian relatives. Here is my great-grandfather, Chaim, who was murdered 5 years after this photo was taken, during the Liepaja massacres.
Saskia Kahn
… is a photographer and educator from Brooklyn, New York, whose work is rooted in generational memory. Her work features portraits of youth, a fascination that stems from the stories of her grandmother surviving the Holocaust during her teenage years. Her ongoing multi-year project, I Can Smell the Water, explores the coastal landscapes that mark her family's diaspora, using photography and alternative processes. Kahn traveled to Latvia, where much of her family perished, and produced a series entitled Without Digging, a reflection on how land plays a role in trauma and memory. In 2024, National Monument Press published Without Digging as a risograph booklet. In 2022, NYC Parks exhibited her beach portraits as a large-scale, site-specific installation in Manhattan Beach Park to mark the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Sandy. Kahn's collaborative art project on queer and trans-identifying skateboarders in Baltimore, MD, earned her the Best Photography Thesis award at the 2022 Global Design Graduate Show. www.saskiakahn.com