Self-Censoring
Photo Installation
Weißensee Kunsthochschule Berlin
- 2024
Self-Censoring is my strategy for responding to an inner conflict I have felt as a photographer since moving to Germany from the UK in 2016. As a guest in this country, I walk a precarious path bordering assimilation at one turn and trespassing at the next. To be welcome and remain, I have to follow the rules. But should this principle also apply to my artistic practice? When does photographing in public space cross moral, cultural, and perhaps legal territory?
The artwork consists of photographic prints, mounted on steel frames, that have been burned by refracted light from the sun. Self-Censoring is therefore both an installation and a process for redacting my photography archive to meet German cultural and legal expectations by protecting the identity of people I have photographed in Berlin without 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.
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