The Exile Project is a series of portraits of people who live in one language but have their hearts in another. The subjects in this series are, for a variety of reasons, existing in a language other than that of their birth. Some are political exiles and refugees, some are indigenous exiles in their own homeland, some are simply immigrants far from home. Each person is asked to consider the basic question: what happens to the mother tongue when it exists, separated or unused, in a state of cultural isolation? The responses form handwritten quotes which are then etched into the image. In this way text and body are juxtaposed to form culturally revealing yet highly personal narratives. The portraits are made with as much simplicity as possible; all are photographed with antique cameras at 1 second shutter speeds, the mechanism of the camera is not used to freeze or capture a "moment," instead, the shutter is held open, and the projection of stillness through space and time flows from the person being photographed. Then, through a process of manipulation, image and text meet in an altered landscape. Through a veil of formal portraiture, The Exile Project presents a collection of faces, ages, texts and calligraphies, all striving to tell a single story, all hoping to give a little more meaning to the vast context of language, loss, and identity.
These images are selections from a much larger body of work. For more information on The Exile Project, please contact the artist.
Read More
In Search of Exile," by Yuri Marder, Photomedia Center, Insight Magazine 2006 »"The Exile Project," by Jeffrey Hoone, Lightwork Menschel Catalogue 1995 »