VANISH
An installation of appropriated photographic portraits of young girls from the 1800’s, photographically printed in positive and negative on silk organza at life size. Dimensions variable, 2018
“Vanish” focuses on impermanence and remnants of ourselves that we leave behind. I am interested in the connection between photography and memory, the image as a stand in for memory, or comforting simulacra suggesting presence in times of absence.
“Vanish” is based on the idea that memories are layered, there are gaps and differing transparency or opacity of depth to each memory, before it fades and is entirely forgotten. I wonder whether photography corrupts or enhances memory, replacing our own visual records, while providing a focus point for constructing a record in our brain, using un-contextualized fragments of a human’s existence.
The installation consists of life-size photographic prints from appropriated, found, tintype images of Victorian girls, on semi opaque silk organza. The tangible evidence of these girls’ existence is found in pocket size tintypes, each in a varying state of worn disintegration. The tintype, invented in the mid 1800’s signifies an era when portraiture became more accessible, in the form of a cheap tin photograph.
These images and my research relate to how we understand temporality, portraiture and the act of photography.