Ghosts in the Studio
Burial Sites is in conversation with many voices. It is a legacy of many other artists and thinkers who have asked similar questions that my work proposes. When I work in the studio, I like to think that I am always surrounded by the ghosts of other artists informing what I am doing. Some of these artists I have only met through the pages of books or on the walls in museums. I don’t need to have a direct conversation with them to feel their influence.
I feel a kinship with Nancy Holt as we both understand that graveyards are full of perfect artworks we could never make with our own hands. They are sculpted by weather and time. Positioned in landscape, they become exhibitions that we could never curate elsewhere. Holt photographed graveyards in the deserts of Nevada and California, treating them as found sculptures. Her 1968 project Western Graveyards is a set of square photographs positioned as a grid. Each grave is different. Some are bound by rickety iron fences or others feature piles of stones and cacti.
Burial Sites will continue beyond iteration of text. It is difficult to exit a relationship with a place. Similarly, Melinda Hunt’s collaborative project Hart Island has become a long-term artwork around a cemetery involving many forms of research. Hart Island is a potter’s field where incarcerated laborers buried the unclaimed and unidentified bodies of New Yorkers. Hunt has used photography, law, storytelling, and music to record this site’s history into an archive. She works to bring this place into the public’s attention, highlighting how the inequity we experience in life carries over into our deaths. Hart Island was inaccessible to visitors for a long time and Hunt’s work exposes what we wish to avoid or hide. Her work calls for a response and ask us to consider our reaction to witnessing another’s suffering.
What is our responsibility as a viewer of a photograph?
I anticipate answering this question will become a lifelong endeavor.
Ellie Ga’s work showed me how the vulnerability of personal narrative can add new depths to the content of a photograph. Through text and image one can travel and explore many times more. She also gifted me with the advice that this project will perhaps never find a final form in which I am satisfied. The work of artists Wendy Ewald and Susan Meiselas has taught me that photography is an act of collaboration and a part of the world. There is responsibility that follows the photograph, a civil contract, demanding an active response. Suzanne Lacey’s work has showed me that my studio does not always have to be housed in a building. Ronnie Horn’s multifaceted practice taught me that I can still return to drawing whenever I wish.
To find this project’s form as a book, I combed library shelves and internet search engines. My book’s creation is the result of my discourse with many authors, taking inspiration from the way they have tackled sequencing, design, layout, use of text, and binding. Ady Warburg’s Bilderatlas Mnemosyne, Gerhardt Richter’s Atlas, Ed Ruscha’s Twentysix Gasoline Stations, and Batia Suter’s Parallel Encyclopedia have become this project’s lineage as it assembles an extensive compilation of images. I kept Aglaia Konrad’s Elasticity, Petra Feriancova’s Index, and Alina Schmuch’s Script of Demolition within reach on my desk. Each of these volumes also organizes hundreds of photographs using unique solutions of the grid. There were more books and artworks by Allan Sekula, Claudia Rankine, Zoe Leonard, Marianne Wex, and Dougals Huebler…
The list goes on. I am indebted to the work of all these artists.
Burial Sites is in conversation with many voices. It is a legacy of many other artists and thinkers who have asked similar questions that my work proposes. When I work in the studio, I like to think that I am always surrounded by the ghosts of other artists informing what I am doing. Some of these artists I have only met through the pages of books or on the walls in museums. I don’t need to have a direct conversation with them to feel their influence.
I feel a kinship with Nancy Holt as we both understand that graveyards are full of perfect artworks we could never make with our own hands. They are sculpted by weather and time. Positioned in landscape, they become exhibitions that we could never curate elsewhere. Holt photographed graveyards in the deserts of Nevada and California, treating them as found sculptures. Her 1968 project Western Graveyards is a set of square photographs positioned as a grid. Each grave is different. Some are bound by rickety iron fences or others feature piles of stones and cacti.
Burial Sites will continue beyond iteration of text. It is difficult to exit a relationship with a place. Similarly, Melinda Hunt’s collaborative project Hart Island has become a long-term artwork around a cemetery involving many forms of research. Hart Island is a potter’s field where incarcerated laborers buried the unclaimed and unidentified bodies of New Yorkers. Hunt has used photography, law, storytelling, and music to record this site’s history into an archive. She works to bring this place into the public’s attention, highlighting how the inequity we experience in life carries over into our deaths. Hart Island was inaccessible to visitors for a long time and Hunt’s work exposes what we wish to avoid or hide. Her work calls for a response and ask us to consider our reaction to witnessing another’s suffering.
What is our responsibility as a viewer of a photograph?
I anticipate answering this question will become a lifelong endeavor.
Ellie Ga’s work showed me how the vulnerability of personal narrative can add new depths to the content of a photograph. Through text and image one can travel and explore many times more. She also gifted me with the advice that this project will perhaps never find a final form in which I am satisfied. The work of artists Wendy Ewald and Susan Meiselas has taught me that photography is an act of collaboration and a part of the world. There is responsibility that follows the photograph, a civil contract, demanding an active response. Suzanne Lacey’s work has showed me that my studio does not always have to be housed in a building. Ronnie Horn’s multifaceted practice taught me that I can still return to drawing whenever I wish.
To find this project’s form as a book, I combed library shelves and internet search engines. My book’s creation is the result of my discourse with many authors, taking inspiration from the way they have tackled sequencing, design, layout, use of text, and binding. Ady Warburg’s Bilderatlas Mnemosyne, Gerhardt Richter’s Atlas, Ed Ruscha’s Twentysix Gasoline Stations, and Batia Suter’s Parallel Encyclopedia have become this project’s lineage as it assembles an extensive compilation of images. I kept Aglaia Konrad’s Elasticity, Petra Feriancova’s Index, and Alina Schmuch’s Script of Demolition within reach on my desk. Each of these volumes also organizes hundreds of photographs using unique solutions of the grid. There were more books and artworks by Allan Sekula, Claudia Rankine, Zoe Leonard, Marianne Wex, and Dougals Huebler…
The list goes on. I am indebted to the work of all these artists.
Holt, Nancy., Fogle, Douglas., Tufnell, Ben. Hujar, Peter, and Susan Sontag. Portraits in Life and Death. New York: Da Capo Press, 1976. United Kingdom: Haunch of Venison, 2012.
Hunt, Melinda, and Joel Sternfeld. Hart Island. Zurich: Scalo Verlag, 1998.
Ohrt, Roberto, Axel Heil, and Aby Warburg. Aby Warburg: Bilderatlas Mnemosyne: The Original. Berlin: HKW, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, 2020.
Richter, Gerhard, and Helmut Friedel. Gerhard Richter - Atlas. Köln: König, 2006.
Ruscha, Edward. Twentysix Gasoline Stations. Alhambra, CA: Cunningham Press, 1969.
Suter, Batia, and Matthew Vollgraff. Parallel Encyclopedia. Amsterdam: Roma
Publication, 2018.
Konrad, Aglaia Konrad. Elasticity. Rotterdam: Nai Publ., 2003.
Feriancová Petra. Index: An Order of Things. Milano: Mousse Publishing, 2013.
Schmuch, Alina, Philipp Ursprung, König Anne, Heike Schuppelius, and Armin Linke. Script of Demolition. Leipzig: Spector Books, 2014.