Shadow Catchers

Floris Neususs: Be Right Back (1984)

"Shadow Catchers" at The V&A exhibits a variety of amazing camera-less photographic art works and techniques, but I was completely captivated by this photogram/installation by Floris Neususs.

Neususs creates images by exposing photographic paper without the use of a camera.  The method produces life sized shadow-like prints which require direct contact with the paper to produce the image.  These factors enhance the memorial aspect of the work – the viewer gets a definite sense that someone was there. 

In “Be Right Back”, the original chair shown on the image has been placed on the paper where it was when the photogram was taken, accentuating the absence of the sitter – who has not.

The title of this particular work draws our attention to the time elapsed since the event.  It becomes spooky that, as a viewer, you are looking at the exact positioning of a person who sat there over 10 years ago.  

V&A exhibition web page 

Preservation with wax

Wax immersed cardigans in the studio.  The wire hangers have been removed, leaving their impression on the set fabric.

Taking the focus back to personal objects, I experimented with immersing second hand children's cardigans in plaster, and also wax.  The knitted texture invites us to wonder whether they are handmade for a child or grandchild, giving them an added sense of personal history.  I feel the wax alludes to the attempted preservation of childhood items and memories.  It also reflects the fragility of the memories we try to preserve, as the wax can be melted again easily.

Close up digital photograph: Laying the object flat accentuates its rigid materiality.

The weave of the fabric creates shadows with a sense of depth.  Positioning the cardigan appearing to drip into the shadow links the two images and invites the viewer to question their relationship.

Ghost Tables

Plaster immersed table cloths, suspended in the studio with light.

Following a tutorial with Pete, I took the petrifying process to a larger scale and experimented with laying sheets of plaster immersed fabric over things and removing the original objects.  Above are 2 table cloths with the tables removed.  They are rigid enough to stand alone, though I suspended the patterned cloth just above the studio floor and lit it from beneath to accentuate the absence of the original table.

Creases in the fabric are intentional and exist to suggest a former human presence, as frozen impressions of their interaction with the object.

Subconscious of a Monument

Cornelia Parker: Subconscious of a Monument

In this amazing installation Parker suspends fragments of earth, excavated from beneath the Tower of Pisa, at waist height.  She creates a scene of dazzling stillness, and a memorial to these once buried and forgotten objects.

Frith Street Gallery website

Stillness & Preservation

I've begun to investigate the idea of creating memorial shadows of objects through 'petrification' using plaster.  I remember going to the petrifying well at Mother Shipton's Cave in North Yorkshire as a child and finding it really spooky seeing these everyday pliable items cast as unusable, frozen immortalities.  Minerals in the dripping water gradually build up on the hanging objects, encasing them in stone.  The fact that they're ordinary objects which you expect to see in use and in human contact seems to draw attention to their stillness.
Go to Mother Shipton's Cave website...

The Petrifying Well at Knaresborough: The two lumps high in the rock face are hats left there in 1853.

First petrification attempts using plaster...

Petrified glove

Petrified socks!

Ja Jetee

Following my tutorial with Robin, I watched the Chris Marker film La Jetee (1966).  It's a film almost completely made with still images.  The amount of time each still is shown for varies, sometimes an image will be present for longer and is accompanied by silence... at these points I found myself being forced to contemplate the image, it's as if time has frozen and you can observe every detail.  I also found myself waiting for something to happen at these points; there's a definate contrast brought to mind between movement and stillness.  The sense of time fascinated me throughout the film: The story is narrated in the present tense, but the use of still images reminds us that these are photographs, presumably taken in the past.

La Jetee

I experimented with series of still images as a creation of narrative for my shoes casts, but was not overly happy with the results.  When playing with the context and setting for the shoes it became too cartoon-like and seemed to take away from the emotional narrative I was aiming to create.

Christian Boltanski - Life and Death

Christian Boltanski: Sans Souci (1991)

Boltanski's "Sans Souci" is a collection of photographs of people who died in Germany during World War 2, they depict these people enjoying everyday western life, often with their families and loved ones.  The piece draws attention to two main aspects: As a viewer, and as a consequence of the progression of time and memory, we do not know which of the dead were Jewish victims and which were Nazis - inviting us to contemplate the point of view that any human 'just like us' is capable of atrocities.  The images also draw on the poignancy of the contrast between life and death - we are fascinated by these images of life because we know these people are now dead.


"We just can't preserve things, or save them from decaying.  And that's what my early work is about: Preserving objects while being aware of their transient nature."
Christian Boltanski (Boltanski, Time. Edited by Ralf Beil. Hatje Cantz 2006)


When I first bought the wellies, I photographed them in a domestic setting.  I liked the ambience created by the light in this particular photo, and the narrative played out by the setting of the wellies by the door.  I have since placed the cast in the same position in recent photographs - I feel the combination of the two states of the object in the same place creates an interesting juxtaposition.

Original Wellies

Cast