Selection of long exposure photography starting from 2014

This series of self-portraits is part of a larger body of work that investigates how long exposure time on film or digital sensors can relate to psychological and mental states. The photographs are drawn from an archive of over 500 images produced over the course of nine years.
I’m interested in the dematerialisation and gradual disappearance of the body in the images and how this process relates to psychology and mental health. Using a timer introduces uncertainty and serendipity into the image-making process, allowing the work to move between haunting, spectral scenes and more fluid states that echo mental episodes and shifts in perception.
Central to this work is the act of merging with the surrounding environment as a way of negotiating identity through space. This dissolution disrupts binaries such as dark and light, life and death, sleeping and waking. As the body becomes absorbed into its milieu, attention is redirected away from physical presence and toward psychological and emotional states.
The work reflects on how social and physical environments can, over time, become sites of both mental illness and mental wellbeing. I’m touching on the uneasy condition of yearning for freedom and involuntarily being embedded within one’s surroundings; emotionally blending into the present yet still failing to connect. The images ruminate on a state of existing without boundaries, where disappearance becomes a symptom of disconnection.