Jury’s choice n°9

Word ’temple’ refers to a place or a structure that is established to enable communication between material and immaterial worlds. Through photography light and time acquire a material form. The observed light is manipulated, translated and stored from one material and language to another – from almost immaterial being into a tangible photographic object.

This series of photographs, Temple, visualise the gesture of photography: an attempt to touch and feel light. In the pictures light literally takes various material forms. Patterned waves in the water represent wavelengths or the radiation, grain of sand illustrate the smallest particle of picture making – pixel or silver grain, thin yarns demarcate the sharp but ever moving line between light and shadow. Women in the pictures try to make sunlight tangible with their delicate tools. They show how through a welding glass sun eclipse becomes possible to look at, or how a rounded piece of glass can look like the moon when the viewing angle is exactly right. The women cut out light from its surroundings like the camera’s shutter does when sequencing moments in time.