Carrie Thompson spoke to #iopSymposium18 live from the USA via the Big Blue Button platform.
Key points:-
Don’t use too much text – need to balance this against the images. If there is too much text, people will not give the images the time they deserve.
Books are intimate. You spend time with them on their own; they are not a group activity.
Editing – print images out and look at them – don’t do on a computer screen
Carrie’s work:-
About her time in therapy – a photo from each session, taken by the therapist who had to learn how to use a camera. This became part of the session each time.
She built a replica of the waiting room to exhibit her work, which was in books on the tables next to the chairs. She played a white noise soundtrack to replicate real life.
Carrie said that is was ‘intimidating and scary’ to see visitors read her book. She saw their reactions, and they wanted to talk to her about it.
She made a book dummy first using manila folders with the tabs cut off.
She included notes from her therapist that were written on a yellow pad and torn off to give to her.
She has a book inside a book – a story inside a story. It has a different format for the images and tells the story of a road trip taken by a broken family.
Her work is about her time in therapy but was not therapeutic. She did not make the work to make herself feel better.
She still felt vulnerable after the book – she hid behind the work and did not deal with anything.
Everything worthy is in her book.
Her second project is about marriage and miscarriage.
She recreated her bedroom in the gallery and populated it with things from her actual bedroom
The second work is a projection
She placed a chair in front of some images that she wanted people to see.
She took photographs of her and her husband during and after her miscarriages.
She said that it ‘seems sad, but reality is just reality to me.’
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