Photographic Montage

20/11/12 – Monumento One: Death, Decay and Destruction, 2012

So last Tuesday was the very first day for installing the exhibition and the majority of the space was filled with plastic bags and cardboard boxes. The very first thing I had decided to do was crop all of the photographs with a cutting board and a stanley knife. I had then ripped, crumpled an burnt the photographs in order to portray the various levels of decay and destruction.

I had also printed 177 6×4 photographs that were also distorted and manipulated with cello tape and sand paper in order to highlight the materiality of the photographic print. Some of the prints were framed ready for the altar that also accompanied the photographic self portraits; this was quite a lengthy process and it did take at least two hours to manipulate all of the photographs.

With the lighter A4 photographs, I had tried to replicate the layout I had created on the front of my own bedroom wardrobe. A few months ago, I was playing around with the layout and I had unintentionally created a cross. I had spent a few hours aligning the photographs with the spirit metre and then I decided to add the darker A4 photographs around the outside of the cross in order to create composition between the light and tone.

While the cross aligns perfectly, the outside photographs were slightly out of order, this was completely intentional and I thought this effect would create an interesting composition between the light and the dark photographs. Once they were attached to the wall, I began to attack the 6×4 photographs, I decided to display them right next to one another, although I had accidentally create another cross, which is very interesting considering that I am not religious and I have been continually making the shape of the cross, without even realising it.

The photographs were very difficult to align and the left hand side was slightly larger than the right. With the accurate lighting, the cross finally appeared in proportion, it’s amazing what a set of lights can do. It was also difficult to attach the crumpled photographs to the wall and in the end, I decided to pin all of the photos so they would stay in place. I decided to use different sized pins in order to create a interesting composition, although the photographic montage did take a whole day to install!