In a world where connectedness, honesty and openness are praised and heralded as the new way of life for up and coming generations, we are seeing less truth in those actions than ever before. Instead of feeling connected we feel isolated; instead of honesty we are fabricating our realities. Blame is often put on others for telling stories of success; perfection and even romanticizing struggle, making others feel like failures. The result is that we are alone in our feelings, despite being surrounded by unimaginable masses.
In filmmaking, the "4th Wall" is the break between camera and viewer, where suddenly the viewer is aware that the film is, in fact, a film. When filmmaking becomes self-reflexive, in some way pointing out that the medium is only a construction, it allows the viewer insight into the process rather than the product. This idea has stuck with me since I attended film school, often wondering what the result would be if we as individuals knocked down the fourth wall between each other, letting in the truest glimpse of our selves.
The ideas of connection, honesty, and the truth of loneliness play out in this series, "The Fourth Wall". A play on words, the series is photographed entirely within four walls with no windows or doors. The characters are contained with no way out, each interacting with a different element in their room. To create the scenes, a camera was mounted on the ceiling and attached to a slider, where it could be glided to me, the photographer, and back out into the center of the room to capture the subject within. Each image was constructed by hand, sometimes taking up to a hundred hours to construct a single set.
Each scene represents an emotion that too often we feel we cannot share. We keep such darkness to ourselves for fear that we will be harshly judged, since so many of our peers seem without to live without struggle. This series represents what we feel behind closed doors, where the emotion fills the room and, in some cases, drowns us.
