Mikaela Toczek

The Farm

When the shutter is released the negative briefly inhabits the captured site in the here, and yet time acts upon it and, within an instant, it is there no longer. Instead, it has flashed out of the past into the viewer’s realm, pushed out of its interval in time and re-placed. Whilst the viewer is acting their gaze upon it, the image could inhabit anywhere, blending imagination with experience to create a projection, a projection that, due to the fluid nature of the image itself is subject to change. When the viewer is no longer looking, the site is nowhere; it does not exist; it inhabits an interval once again. The Farm plays the themes of absence and presence, the capabilities of a site to be here, anywhere and nowhere and the fluidity of time against each other. Inspired by Walter Benjamin’s ideas of 'The Angel of History', 'Constellations' and 'Denkbild', The Farm attempts to deconstruct the fallacy of the imaged site, and replace it in response to contemporary criticism of landscape, space and place.


selected by Emma Morris, Photoworks

http://www.mikaelatoczek.com