3 x 3 x 3 A4 photocopies of photograph print and shopping list (over a fortnight during quarantine times)
The series of photocopies here derives from another series of black-and-white photographs of a shirt taken at the end of March 2020. Near the beginning of the lockdown period, I noticed that this shirt – now frayed at the edges and torn on one sleeve, not apparent though from a suitable social distance – when cast unceremoniously on the floor adopted a pose expressive of a spirit without me. I then went on to cast down the shirt more ceremoniously, photographing how it fell.
I selected three of these photographs, not unreminiscent of the pupa, larva and imago stages of insect metamorphosis, and juxtaposed the photographs with grocery shopping lists that I had kept from the previous fortnight. (Under quarantine, shopping just every four or five days has required such lists more comprehensive; the items on a list are arranged so as to be read in the order in which they are encountered, entrance to exit.) Two cycles are thereby counterpointed: the unconscious rhythm of days a particular shirt is worn, and the period between shopping trips, dictated largely by when milk, beer or wine go short. I then photocopied the three pairs of shirts/shopping lists three times over, the copy of the copy of the copy erasing the ephemera. I repeated this procedure three times, cycling round the copies an extra step each time.
During quarantine the names of the days seem to come less readily to mind; there is a need to impose a structure on the days so that events might happen in them. In the grid of photocopies, horizontal is metamorphosis into imago, while vertical is metamorphosis of an image into its ghost. Which direction the days go remains to be seen, as they disappear.