Speaking House

Sometimes when empty buildings transform into camera obscura, the rooms become surfaces for reflections of feelings and memories. In 2004 I came upon a large building which had stood vacant for 15 years – a former mental hospital. Its densely coloured walls, having seen better days, and having been used for colour therapy, became ever more remarkable when filled with upside-down images from the world outside. I photographed the series "Speaking House" in the period 2004–2006. The times of day and the seasons changed and in that building the light always had something different to say. Working there was like light meditation as the sun went round the building and the earth went round the sun. The exposure times were long, as much as an hour, as at that time I was still using film. The pictures became imbued with layered spaces in which intangible spaces of light found their place in the bleak rooms of the hospital as if challenging the existence of one space and one time. In the series Speaking House the themes of disintegration, fragility and renunciation are linked to the death of my mother.