HEAVEN; JUST ANOTHER RUIN 

《天堂的模样:它不不过是另⼀一⽚片废墟。》

Part II

Beneath the rotting foliage and debris of the forest, things are constantly decaying and decomposing. Destruction is a natural process of life and regeneration. But what needs to be destroyed to make way for something new? These are ideas that emerged when I was listening to the lectures of Professor Jack Halberstam in ‘Unworlding: An Aesthetics of Collapse’. During a moment where utopias are being constructed and world-making influences both reality and fantasy, Halberstam considers what needs to be unmade and undone before new worlds can come into being. They reference artists like Gordon Matta- Clark and his ‘anarchitecture’ – a response to gentrification. With a focus on voids, gaps, and left-over spaces, he cut into buildings that were about to be demolished. His work parallels artist Doris Salcedo who created ‘Shibboleth’, a giant crack made into the floor of the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern. Destruction is a creative process.

From social media to advertising – my world is inundated with images. What is the place of photography in a realm so over-saturated with images? Instead of making, what I wanted more was to destroy my images, to delete all the photos on my camera roll so I can be done with the constant reminders to buy more storage on iCloud. Inspired by queer photographer Jimmy DeSana, I turned to my images with a knife and began to cut into them. Photography as a medium can sometimes feel objective, cold, and removed, but cutting into the images became hands-on and personal.

These self-portraits involved several stages and were created by photographing, editing, printing, cutting, then re-photographing, editing, and finally printing again. I used my own image because the idea of cutting into the image of someone else felt too violent. But perhaps that speaks to how marginalised people have had to internalise anger and turn violence inward. At the same time I was thinking about the ways queer representation and identity politics has become tokenising and flat. I wanted to go beyond ticking a box and instead rip into the surface of the image to reach something deeper.

List of Works

Another Ruin I, (2023)
Digital photographic print on textured cotton rag paper 594 x 841 mm
Another Ruin II, (2023)
Digital photographic print on textured cotton rag paper 594 x 841 mm
Another Ruin III, (2023)
Digital photographic print on textured cotton rag paper 594 x 841 mm
Another Ruin IV, (2023)
Digital photographic print on textured cotton rag paper 594 x 841 mm
Another Ruin V, (2023)
Digital photographic print on textured cotton rag paper 594 x 841 mm

Another Ruin VI, (2023)
Digital photographic print on textured cotton rag paper 594 x 841 mm