Shadow Language & Lacunae Series
Shadow Language
For my Shadow Language Series I borrow objects that are invested with their lenders’ emotions, memories, and sense of identity. I interview each lender about their attachment to their object, and then create a shadow with it. Although the shadow’s composition is influenced by my interpretation of lenders’ stories, ultimately the shadow becomes a detached, autonomous entity, no longer anchored to, or a stand-in for, its casting object.
Taken separately, each shadow becomes a manifestation of, or ‘remains’ of, my exchange with the lender. Placed together, and presented in the guise of logographs, these remains take on the form of language.
My Shadow Language is dependent on context, designed to absorb a multiplicity of meanings, coexisting in harmony.
My intention is to reflect a plurality of experience, with an ‘effacement of the agent’. The focus here is not on something signified by language, but on the infinite meaning-generating potentiality of language through its focusing on itself and ever renewing itself.
Lacunae Series
‘Art Workers’ exhibition Biblioteca Angelica Rome 2018
When researching the library I was drawn to certain manuscripts, those with lacunae left intentionally for later readers to add notes. I was granted permission to photograph pages and create work in response, placing Shadow Language digitally within the gaps.
