Thursday, June 02, 2005

Constructing evidence


The final cofa assignment is entitled "constructing evidence". It can be interpreted many different ways but basically relates to the idea of photography being true, real and debating the idea of photo-journalism vs staged photography as art.
My concept was to use the word "constructing" as a main aspect of my project by using collage to overlap two different "realities" happening at the same time, but with no consience of the other one. The collages create a new reality where two realities, situations coexist in the same time and space in a strange tension.
To form the background, I have taken photos of Coogee beach on a beautiful day, trying to express the peacefulness of going for a walk with your lover, sitting on the beach with a friend, watching the water on your own....
Then, I have cut photos out of the Sydney Morning Herald on internet. All the photos come from a special report on the war in Irak.
I have tried to express how easy it is to forget that there is a war in Irak in which Australia is involved. It is almost uncomfortable to look at those collages because the serenity of the people on the beach creates such a big gap with what I've made them watch and participate in.
To some extent, they also express the ambiguous role of the photographer who is an observer and never an actor. "The person who intervenes cannot record; the person who is recording canot intervene." (Susan Sontag, on Photography)
Maybe those collages are a passive intervention to raise the awareness of the viewer.
Maybe the images also ask the question "could you just sit there if that was happening in front of you?", "can you just sit there when it is happening on the other side of the world?"

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

About all we allow to go on in the world without stopping the bad things, you should read Nicolas D. Kristof's editorials in the New York Times on the subject of Dafur (Sudan). Love your great collage idea (even if it made you lose a lot of zleep).