| COLLECTED
VISIONS I, 1993-94 slide installation with music by Elizabeth Brown |
   Interior Views of Collected Visions I at the Houston Center for Photography; horizontal wall images 10x15' and verticals 10x6.9'; top: excerpts from sections I and II; middle: detail from section I; bottom: mid-dissolve excerpt from section III. |
COLLECTED
VISIONS I is a three part slide and music installation that examines the
representation of women and girls in family photographs. These photographs
were collected from approximately 100 women from varied backgrounds and
different generations.
Section I and II are ten minute sequences examining the representation of girlhood and the experience of coming of age. Subtleties of gaze and gesture become clues for how girls find their voices, and the layering of images within and between sequences emphasizes the complexities of representation. In Part I, a woman's hands holding open books about women (such as A Room of One's Own, Little Women, and Writing a Woman's Life) are superimposed over many of the images. Simultaneously, Section III unfolds in an opposing corner with images dissolving from wall to wall. This 20 minute sequence is a chronological tracing of girls standing before the camera from age one through adolescence. Composer Elizabeth Brown created a score for flute, glass harmonica, cello and viola d'amore. COLLECTED VISIONS I was commissioned
by the Houston Center for Photography
with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts and was exhibited
there in May 1993. A revised version was shown in the exhibition Imaging
Families: Images and Voice at the National African American Museum
Project at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C., August 1994-February
1995. |