On the 3rd October 2017, I had the privilege of exhibiting some of my first year work from studying at Coventry University, alongside my fellow classmates, thanks to a group of them who kindly put it together. For one evening only, the exhibition took place in the hub of our learning space at the university – the Ellen Terry building, centre for the Faculty of Arts and Humanities. The exhibition was open to all members of the public and was free to attend, there were some refreshments and the evening took place between 6.30-9.30pm. The installation displayed a piece of work completed by nearly every first year from our photography class, the works came from a variety of different modules we had completed in first year – mine was from the module: Documents and Fictions and I displayed my work from An Intimate Trace.
Below is the artist statement I wrote for my work to inform the audience:
The individual impressions and imprints left behind in the beds of relatives with a close relationship to Holly Houlton after a night’s sleep are exhibited as evidence. The entirety of the project involves those of Houlton’s immediate family – parents, brother, grandmother and herself. An Intimate Trace serves the purpose of documenting these intimate, non-events of the subject’s daily lives; personal states which are not paid attention to. These states are representing the concept of indexicality, they are leaving “a trace” (Sontag 1977: 154). Voyeurism is a contributing theme to the work, the creation of the images and the way they have been displayed allows the viewer to peer into this private situation which is presented scientifically, like evidence, through the use of the microporous tape and the corresponding text for the image, detailing the time/date it was taken and the subject’s relationship to the photographer.
The project was made using a realistic approach which involved photographing the beds close to when the subject had woken up, to capture the most defined impressions from their night’s sleep as well as minimalist manipulation used in post-production to echo the authenticity of the traces.
As this work documents such an ordinary event, it enables viewers to relate and consider in a different light their own daily non-events which perhaps often go unnoticed.
Each person’s work featured in the hand-made exhibition guides which were free for visitors to take, giving them some context for the audience.
It was a wonderful event and our first exhibition at the university; it was fantastic to see all our work on display and to have members of the public engaging with them too.
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