Exhibition: The Fall, Campbell Works

The Fall is a body of work developed for a solo show at Campbell Works, London in 2012 supported by a development and production grant from Arts Council England, London. Publication designed by Cameron Leadbetter of Shining Studio.

The exhibition included a room of digital projections – the work Windfall, six photographs on a timed loop, tracking the movement of an apple as it is thrown / falls through the air and takes its own photograph.

See the essay Photographing Apples by Daniel C. Blight – www.varioussmallfires.co.uk

‘The photograph was not taken by a human hand, but rather by a motion detector; triggered by a single, unattached apple moving vertically through the frame…Like other interesting photographs, this one thinks, like all other photographs, this one lies…

…By taking away something in the making of this photograph, we are offered something dead and rotten with no sharp ends. The picture allows us to think politically: to think beyond one human and one response and instead to the wider social function of a particular form of photographic technology as it relates to the authority of images’ Daniel C. Blight

A series of stills on a monitor showed the passage of a dart as it flies across a bookcase, its shadow clearer than than the object. A hanging of balls in the kitchen, translucent circles illuminating a hallway, a single ball on the pillow. Finally, four photographs of scenes from the photo studio – an egg thrown and suspended in mid-air, a lump of blu-tak, misshapen from hitting the surface.

Making the work was a response to my experience of infertility. It was the first time I’d shot work in my home, my studio, my darkroom. Each stage of the project unknowingly reflected the stages I was going through in my attempts to become pregnant; trusting in nature, scheduling, interventions and what felt like random attempts before defeat.

Using automatic triggers meant I could draw a direct line between the subject and its role in the making of an image; prioritising action, rather than thought in the production of the photographs.