Lexicon of vanishing words

Lexicon of Vanishing Words is a poetic portrait of Iratxe Jaio’s father, who started having difficulties holding on to his memories. This compelled him to embark on a frantic mission: to record every fleeting thought and recollection before it might slip into oblivion. Within a year, he filled several boxes with scraps of paper, containing memories, word lists, and colloquial expressions in his mother tongue, Euskara. In that same year, he also took around 14.000 photos of the things he encountered in his everyday life.

Jaio’s film combines digital video and super-8 film footage of her father as he revisits scenes from his past life with a little help from his grandchildren. In voice-over, we hear him read out passages from his notes.

To navigate the load of images her father captured, Jaio used an AI image-recognition tool to categorize and interpret them. Alongside a selection of the photos, small screens show the resulting descriptions, which veer from uncanny precision to wild inaccuracy.

Memory is vulnerable. Jaio engages with her father’s desire to leave something for posterity, while probing the limits of how much of someone’s inner world can really be found in the traces they leave behind.

Camera, editing and creative advice: Klaas van Gorkum
Actors: Josetxo Jaio Ibarluzea, Peio Urteaga Jaio, Iñaki van Gorkum Jaio
Sound mastering: Roel Meelkop
Super-8 film development and digitization: Andec Film Berlin
Thanks to: Blanka Gomez de Segura, Itsaso Jaio, Hibai Urteaga

Commissioned by Tent, production house for Rotterdam artists, for the exhibition "Lend me your ears".