Falling Bodies

I used to be an aerialist. 'Falling Bodies' sprang from my wish to see and record, in detail, what a falling person looks like. I asked acrobats as well as untrained volunteers to fall from height and photographed them in the process of falling. The narrative of falling - as experienced by mythological figures such Adam and Eve in the Fall, Ikarus, Lucifer - alludes to notions of temporality and mortality, but also emancipation; the fateful passing from one state to another. I used conventional large-format photography, one shot per fall. Each photographs is thus a record of my pressing the shutter at a particular moment during each fall, with all the randomness that this entails. The lengths I went to in order to make this project look 'real' are extraordinary, from a specially constructed studio to safety consultants. My aim was firstly to make visible the uncertainty and fear at the moment of letting oneself fall from height, as expressed in faces and bodies; secondly, the viewer had to be in no doubt that the falls recorded were actual and real. In the event I completely failed in the latter. As to the former, I leave it for you to decide.