Part of the group show ‘The way we talk (about it)’, at Brunswick Temporary, 26 Nov to 17 Dec, 2022.

During the long lockdowns, I often visited the Melbourne General Cemetery, walking among the graves in solitude and contemplating the porcelain cameo portraits set into the headstones. Over time, I began to document these portraits, sentimentally framed by bouquets left by loved ones. I gradually built a photographic series of these commemorations alongside images of the cemetery itself; its architecture, carved stones and incidental details; creating an archive of images of images that extends my interest in transforming found images into recursive archives.

The series is presented as 35mm positive slides projected through a carousel slide projector, producing a flickering, durational stream of cameo portraits framed by flowers. Included here are scans directly from the 35mm film, extending the portraits into architectural fragments and surface details of the cemetery. Moving between the photographed faces and the cemetery that contains them, the work considers the relationship between presence and absence, memory and material remains. As Roland Barthes writes, “Death is [its] eidos.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Installation views, 35mm slides, Kodak carousel slide projector, timber, 2020/2021, editions of 5 + AP.
Part of the group show ‘The way we talk (about it)’, at Brunswick Temporary.