other rhythms (or: composting photography), 2023
We expect from photography that it documents, captures and preserves something for us. It is up to the photographer to decide who, what and above all how someone or something is depicted. What happens when the authorship of an image is divided or even relinquished; when it is no longer a matter of taking an image but much more about creating circumstances in which an image can emerge? What happens when a photograph is considered a process instead of a fixed and final piece?
Burying photographic paper in the compost heap is such an experiment. It offers life forms such as fungi and microorganisms as well as the various chemical processes that occur when sunlight, photographic paper and the organic compost materials meet, the opportunity to inscribe themselves in the images and reshape them again and again in their own way. Not entirely fixed, the images remain unstable, a living process and a fragmentary revealing of organic activities and rhythms. The analogy of composting in relation to photography indicates that one is working with something that has already been there before – various materials that need to be considered and taken care of; materials that interact with each other and that carry a history within themselves.