What do we take with us when we leave? What must we leave behind? In "Detachment Issues," a man walks, hunched over under the weight of three overpacked bags, one hanging from his right hand, another stuffed under his left arm, and a third on his back. His strenuous breathing is almost audible from his gaping mouth. Additionally, he continues to accumulate new weight as he marches forward. As he walks between two trees, their gnarled trunks devoid of any evidence of life, they snap around him, falling onto him and piercing through his clothes, catching him in a net of dead branches.
Discussions of attachment theory usually center around early childhood development, and how that period of a person's life influences adult relationships. Therefore, this metaphorical representation of a mental condition that continues throughout a person's life, and the anonymity of the person because of his hidden face, creates an ambiguous resolution to the figure's story. Will he find his journey stunted, unable to continue? Will he drop the bags to free himself from the branches? Or will he find a way through the branches but retain his luggage? Can the contents of his bags be left behind, and who would he be without them?
Bak's affinity for in medias res storytelling leaves much of his art up for the viewer's interpretation. With such an integral part of the human experience on display, "Detachment Issues" may remind us of our own experiences. It is interesting to think about Sam Bak's childhood experience of being forced to drop the pillow he had brought with him, losing it forever. The only thing that could take its place were memories.
Jocelyn Furniss (Guest writer)
BAK a Day, January 30, 2023
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Detachment Issue seems far too relevant to today and the millions of refugees from Ukraine.
The figure with the bag is pierced by tree branches and trapped, or entrapped, or unable to detach.
The segments of concrete walls add to the sense of being entrapped.
How are we able to be free?
Can we detach ourselves from the past and now from the horrors of the present?
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