River Piece, Cyanotypes from Home
2022-Present (Ongoing)
Dimensions variable; Tongva land, Los Angeles
Performance, Installation; 35mm, DV
In this informal sketch for a larger performance in development, I lay out over one hundred cyanotypes along a concrete bank of the channelized LA River, just downhill from the home where I currently live. The prints, exposed from dawn to dusk during a visit to my hometown, render the slow blooming then disappearing of light on an overcast day. Here I allow the resulting cyanotypes to unfurl along the river, where pedestrians and cyclists zoom by on the opposite bank. I gather river stones to hold down the prints, which sometimes roll away to allow the prints to flutter in the wind. Rather than emphasize a particular linearity of time, this project is experimenting with the effect of seeing an entire day at once, one place superimposed onto another, two homes merging in one passing place-time along the river. This piece is the first experiment into how to publicly display the larger, ongoing series in which I capture the all-day progression of light and shadows on the equinoxes and solstices, of which these works are part.
Cyanotypes, performance, concept, video editing: Serena Caffrey
Director of photography: Gilles O'Kane
Materials: Cyanotype on Shiramine, buckets, river stones, messenger bag