Signs of Light
Shortlisted for the 2018 Capture Photography Festival Canada Line Competition in Vancouver Canada.
2018 Capture Photography Festival Canada Line Competition Finalists
Signs of Light
2018 Capture Photography Festival Canada Line Competition Proposal
Natalie Hunter
Colour photographs on transparent vinyl installed in the King Edward Canada Line Station
Signs of Light explores the complex relationships we maintain with public and private spaces. The artist considers light to be an emotive and psychological indicator of space and memory. Light animates our living space, and our living spaces often mirror the mind. This body of work explores our intimate relationships with lived spaces, the emotional attachments we place on private domestic spaces, and the continual eroding boundary between public and private in our contemporary digital age.
Using medium-format photography, transparency film, layering, and colour filters, the resultant photo-based installation depicts a fragmented view of a window in Natalie Hunter’s childhood bedroom. Resembling film stills, the passage of time, or a cinematic interpretation of a home, Hunter’s memory of this intimate space becomes public in its colossal size and communal location.
Resting somewhere between object and image, inside and outside, ephemeral and material within the transitory space of a station window, the photographs become both sculptural and immaterial. As viewers spend time in the station, the sun's movements cast imagery within the interior of the space. At night, the images are illuminated for passengers standing outside of the building. This encourages a thoughtful encounter with a private and personal space that is displaced from its original context and moved to a public domain. Ultimately, this work seeks to examine how traces of our interior, most private spaces linger in our minds, being, and memory, long after we’ve left them behind. In this way, the work considers how we navigate both public and private spaces in our digital age.