“How do you photograph nothingness?”
It can be argued that Anne Ferran is the most prominent female in contemporary art photography in the country at the moment; however, her lecture did not seem to do earn her the recognition that she has obviously earned. Her series, Lost Worlds 2, the focus of the lecture, was a series that undoubtedly held great importance to her. Aimed at remembering those who otherwise would not be remembered, the work was a series of large scale photographs showing grass, nothingness, something that could not draw any meaning and thus leave the audience with nothing but the chance to remember those who may not usually be remembered. However, as Ferran mentioned, it seems intrinsic for a human to try and find or draw meaning from a photograph. Unlike other art mediums, photography can only capture something that exists, a time, place or object, but never ‘nothingness’. The audience always wants to take it for something that exists because that is our understanding of a photograph. Ferran explained her motive for the work, children born to women in female penal institutions in Tasmanisa in the 1800s, who died before the age of 2 years, leaving this world as nothing but a name on a page. It is hard to not appreciate Ferran’s dedication to the research, however, this student and photographer questions the how well the final works reflected the research.
No comments:
Post a Comment