Studios > Kwabena Slaughter
Kwabena Slaughter
I think of cameras, along with photographs, as cultural artifacts. In the same way that an anthropologist can look at jewelry or clothing to learn about the culture that created those things, the design of a camera and the photos it takes can tell us about the culture that created them. Stripped of its cultural history a “camera” is simply an enclosed object with a hole in one side through which light enters. As such, the camera predates photography by thousands of years. With these factors of origin, evolution, and technology as a starting point, my work asks the question: “what would photography look like if it had grown out of a different aesthetic tradition?”
The photos I make explore the representation of space, time, and narrative through a panoramic style. Using a specially modified camera I shoot directly onto long rolls of color slide-film. The image fills the entire film-strip, without any frame breaks, looking much like a photographic scroll. The strips of slide-film, which can be up to 100-ft long, are displayed on light-boxes. The long horizontal strips of film serve as both as a measure of the dimensions of the subject and also as a record of the subjects movement over time.
I will be designing and constructing sets, choreographing movements for dancers, lighting the scenes and photographing them. I am aiming towards a work that is in the range of 6 feet tall by 20-40 feet wide.
