PORTRAIT SHOW 2021

“All photographs are memento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another person (or thing’s) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt.” Susan Sontag

Over the last couple of years we’ve participated in a collective reflection on life, death, and everything in between. Experiencing the loss of so many lives across the world, some as close as our own homes and communities; together we’ve entered into forced consideration of what it means to be alive at present, the fragility of human life, and the fleeting nature of our physical existence. 

The time spent reflecting on our relationships to other human beings, whether physical, socio-psychological, economic or otherwise, has heightened our awareness of our common humanity and mortality, as that which connects us all - regardless of the diversity of beliefs, experiences, social systems and geographies which seemingly separate us. Beyond the confines of culture and geographical borders, exists a common need to visualise the relationship between ourselves and others, for it is always our deep connections to other beings which drive and shape our earthly experience. 

And now, as we stare at the flattened surfaces of our human existence, we are reminded of both the triumphs and failures of photography, in its ability to both reveal and miss the very thing we are trying to explain.