About this project

Overview

In early September of 2011, fellow friend and photographer, Charlotta Hauksdottir, and I (Sonja Thomsen) received confirmation from the Reykjavik Museum of Photography that our proposal for a two-woman show had been accepted and is now scheduled to be featured in January of 2012! I will be showing three pieces in this, my first international museum exhibition. With this Kickstarter, I am looking to fund the production and installation of these works in Iceland. One piece in particular (lacuna) will require over 4,200 color photocopies in order to sustain the 5 month duration of the show.

While in Iceland, I will be extending my stay for the sake of creating a new photographic series, taking advantage of this opportunity to explore Iceland's landscape in the dark blanket of winter. Additional funds will be used to purchase and process the Fuji 120 film used for this self-made residency. 

Incentives

stacks for the peeling; collect some of these photocopy reproductions from the lacuna installation (Image fades as the stack recedes....)

a piece of the whole; signed and editioned 10" x 10" digital C-print from lacuna (Kickstarter limited edition of twenty)

for the savvy collector; ripe box set of eighteen 14" sq. digital C-prints in a clam shell box (Kickstarter limited edition of one)

About the Work

lacuna, an interactive installation of photographic reproductions, creates a constellation of recollection, as transient in nature as memory itself.   Seventy small-scale images hang on the wall, some as stacks of reproductions waiting to be peeled away by the public.  Throughout the duration of the installation as the images are removed they fade and reveal an impression in Plexiglas of the image that was once there. Place and person become symbol and impression in the work creating an emotive narrative suspended in the gap between, a man straddling dementia, a boy in his teenage prime, hands cradling the last harvest of raspberries.

Read more about lacuna here.

Proscenium features a draped picture window looking onto the Gulf of Mexico as weather and water become actors on a stage. It is displayed in two ways, first as a looping animated projection and then as a series of still images hung in the round. The kinetic nature of the projection brings the subtle shifts of light within each still image to life, emphasizing the contrasting persistence of the horizon line. This mirrors the simultaneous perceptions of time as ever constant and persistently passing.

View a short video of the Proscenium projection here.

ripe, recently completed in August of 2011, is comprised of an eighteen image sequence that constructs metaphors centered around the cyclical in motherhood and mortality. Circles are the form and subject of the work creating iconic images; a nipple, a target, pin curls, a merry-go-round. The piece is exhibited as a looping video, viewed through a 4.5” hole flush in the wall, engaging the viewer in a singular intimate experience.

View the sequence from ripe here.