‘Marks of Absence’ – Photographs by Des Crossley

Marks of Absence is an eight-panel series photographed at Auschwitz using a Leica IIIC – a camera from the Holocaust era, connected to the story of Ernst Leitz and the ‘Leica Freedom Train’ that helped Jews escape Nazi Germany.

Each photograph is rendered in halftone, comprising 750,000 dots—six million across the series—to symbolise each life lost. These dots form both the visual texture and conceptual weight of the work. Marks of Absence bridges history and the present, asking viewers not only to remember, but to reflect on what endures and what still demands change.

The Leica’s worn shutter curtain left small holes in the images. These marks, preserved rather than corrected, represent the voids that remain in humanity: empathy, justice, and memory. Despite eighty years, we have yet to fully learn from this dark chapter.

The exhibition includes three additional photographs taken at Auschwitz. These high contrast photographs reveal a stark interplay between light and shadow, offering a counterpoint to the broken up pixelation of the Marks of Absence series. Presented side by side, these different approaches to representation challenge our assumptions about the present and the past, the objective and the subjective, and the evident and the unknowable.

Melbourne-based artist Des Crossley uses analogue photography and conceptual thinking to explore memory and history. His work brings reality into focus through symbolic processes, connecting past events with present questions of justice and remembrance. For information about the artist visit @des_crossley_photography on Instagram.

A Ballarat International Foto Biennale Open Program exhibition.

Image: Des Crossley, ‘Barriers to Forgetting’ (from Marks of Absence) 2025 (detail), Inkjet transfer on acrylic medium, applied to art board, 40 × 50 cm