b'In The Generation of Postmemory: Writing and Visual Culture After the Holocaust, Marianne Hirsch wonders how, [and] by what mechanisms does the inter- and transgenerational return of traumatic knowledge make its way from the past and into the present. 2She forms her conception of postmemory in part as an answer to the unpredictability of trau-mas return, describing a generation shaped by received experiences and grappling with the aftermath of catastrophe, a concept familiar to Ondrizek both personally, across her diverse family background, and through her research.Read from the perspective of Hirschs disjunctive postmemory, both a chilling and comfort-ing sense of continuity can be found in the pages of a work like The Origins of Bio Metric Data; a Collection of Books (201516), a multi-object installation that unfolds across a set of handmade books presented on a custom-made cabinet and table. This work was born of the artists research into the archives of Dr. Georg Geipel, an influential German scientist work-ing between 1937 and 1964, who pioneered the field of biometric identification. The work includes page after page of the palm-prints of individuals, twins, and psychiatric patients involved in Dr. Geipels studies, which sought to understand genetic inheritance. Printed on nearly translucent paper that evokes human skin, they reach out and across both the short twentieth century and eons of genetic evolution, a testament to science and arts ongoing entangled promises of progress and transcendence. Through this project, Ondrizek engages the complex history of these endeavors, and attunes us to their continued use in our daily life as mechanisms of control and surveillance.notes1. Reuters, Dozens of Indigenous women forcibly sterilized file a class-action lawsuit against the Canadian government. Public Radio International (PRI), 23 Nov. 2018, www.pri.org/stories/2018-11-23/dozens- indigenous-women-forcibly-sterilized-file-class-action-lawsuit-against. Accessed 27 Nov. 2018.2. Hirsch, Marianne, The Generation of Postmemory: Writing and Visual Culture After the Holocaust. (New York: Colombia University Press, 2012), p. 6.52'