"Letting enough light in to make sure that the work looks natural" Inkjet printed photograph on industrial floor paper, 16ft. x 12ft. (2018)

Letting enough light in to make sure that the work looks natural

       Letting enough light in to make sure that the work looks natural is a piece that focuses on the construction process and a constant need for light. It is something that is harder to see in homes that are finished; electricity tricks us into thinking our caves are glass boxes. It is not a document of a place, but rather a document of an action, which, like photography itself,  is performed to better see and understand a space.

       As a home is built, there is a somewhat haphazard process of covering and uncovering. Crews come and go and as the work progresses, layers of translucent film accumulate and cling to everything in webs of blue tape. The things we suffocate in these temporary tombs, are the quintessential ‘inside’ objects. I used to think “why not just wait until the ‘inside’ is finished before we bring in the ‘inside’ objects?” But it would be impossible, simply because of our overwhelming desire for inside. We will never stop throwing away the dirt that threatens this threshold.

       That being said, Letting enough light in to make sure that the work looks natural is a straightforward depiction of the need to tear through this film. It is an homage to the camera obscura, and the inability of photography to ever describe the myth of ‘nature’. Luigi Ghirri writes that “The image, they discovered, was formed upside-down within an enclosed space, when the scope of the outside world passed through a tiny hole. This discovery negated the prospect of ever representing or knowing ‘nature.’”(Luigi Ghirri, ‘∞’ Infinity”: Luigi Ghirri, the Complete Essays (MACK, 2016) p49) I am intrigued that a camera obscura was the result of a destruction of the plastic film, for the purpose of creating enough light to ensure we were crafting a sufficient illusion of the very outside world we were trying to keep out.  Looking through a piece of glass, looking at the outside from the inside, looking out at something.

-Chase England, 2018