The viewer is immediately thrown into a chaotic scene. They are met with an oversized key slamming through the façade of a house. The key has smashed into the earth and pushed another key to the side. There are ropes twisted to trees attempting to lift up (or hold down?) this devastated home. A family watches in awe and a figure points upward. Is the home floating away? Is it falling?
People are met with challenges throughout their lives, but for a person who has gone through a traumatic experience, facing similar traumatic challenges can likely be overwhelming, if not impossible. Past Ever Present is a reminder that anywhere these survivors go, they are reminded of the horrors they have experienced. Is there hope after devastation?
As in many of Bak's pieces, both destruction and hope are present, much like life. What does one do when faced with the truth? Best to learn from that experience and move forward ready to make change.
Beth Plakidas (Guest writer)
BAK a Day, March 25, 2023
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We are a part of all that we have met. Indeed our past is a part of us in our present.
Bak tells of being forced into a very small room with more that 50 people in the Ghetto Vilna and hearing a woman screaming: “Moshe, we have forgotten the key to our apartment!”
As if they, or almost all of the Jews of Vilna or citizens of Ukraine, will ever return to their homes.
The missing key/keys are shown across the space.
Embedded in the fragments of the house, littering the ground, all discarded or immobilized.
The ropes hold the fragments aloft and to what end?
Clearly the Past is too Present.
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