Hold up to View

Photo Series
Ocean City, New Jersey

- 2017


In the immediate run-up to the 2017 solar eclipse, which was seen in totality across several states in the US, the media coverage of the event was considerable. At a time of political shifts in the White House following a series of senior staff resignations, continued suspicions over claims of Russian hacking in the 2016 presidential election, growing tensions between the US and North Korea after missile fears for Guam, and domestic clashes in Charlottesville between White Nationalists and counter-protestors over the Civil War monument dispute, the solar eclipse news story became a simple and unifying distraction.

Repetitive reports ran daily, ranging from how to best watch the eclipse (in which states and at what times, how to safely observe it without damaging the eye, ways to construct homemade viewing devices, etc) to discussions of a shortage of eclipse glasses in stores across the country prompting shipments from the UK. Bonnie Tyler also announced that she would sing ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ on board a cruise ship leaving from Florida.

In looking up at the eclipse in Ocean City, New Jersey, there was a shared feeling of having witnessed the miraculous. It happened regardless of political and cultural anxiety, and it happened for everyone. But, for those Americans who were too late to buy eclipse glasses, a Cheerios box with a pinhole on the side was all they needed to look away from the US and briefly forget.


Editions:
- Dimensions (HxWxD): 50 × 40 × 5 cm
- Materials: Digital C-Type, Fuji Matt
- Frame: Tray Frame, Oak Moulding
- Primary Medium: Photography
- Edition of: 20