Self-Censoring
Photo Installation
Weißensee Kunsthochschule Berlin
- 2024
As a guest in Germany, I walk a precarious path bordering assimilation at one turn and trespassing at the next. To be welcome here and to remain, I have to follow the rules.
This project responds to an inner conflict I have felt as a photographer since I moved to Germany from the UK in 2016 - a moral and at times legal conflict. The conception of the artwork was finally sparked by an encounter I had with a man in Neu-Hohenschonhausen, Berlin, in 2023 after I photographed the window of a building he was inside of at the time. The man confronted me after he witnessed me take the photo. He was angry. Although I disagreed with him in principle on my right to have taken the photo, his pain was undeniable, and I suspected this pain was born from the man’s fear of what I might do with the photo.
Self-Censoring is my strategy for responding to this inner conflict, and my confrontation with the man in Neu-Hohenschönhausen. It is both an installation and a process for auditing my digital photography archive to meet German cultural and legal expectations. The installation uses magnifying glasses and heat from the sun to redact depictions of people I have photographed in public spaces in Germany over the past 8 years without their prior-given consent. In doing so, the rights of these individuals to privacy are ensured (albeit at the cost of a little censorship).
Self-Censoring was developed in classes at Weißensee Kunsthochschule Berlin and presented in the exhibition Mending the Void - part of the university’s annual open doors (Rundgang) weekend. The installation comprises three steel frames, with legs. On each frame is mounted one 100cm x 70cm photographic print and an extendable metal ‘arm’ that holds a magnifying glass.
Editions:
- Dimensions (HxWxD): 100cm x 70cm x 5 cm
- Materials: Archival Pigment Print (Giclée), Hahnemühle Pearl
- Frame: Tray Frame, Chipboard Moulding
- Primary Medium: Photography
- Edition of: 20
Installation:
- Materials: Giclee Prints on Hahnemühle Pearl, Steel Ramp and Frame Constructions, Desk Lamps, Magnifying Glasses
- Dimensions (HxWxD): 100cm x 70cm x 40cm