Fragmentation as Preservation

In the video work On Glass, Sits an Image (Mooney,Stanley: 2018) a slideshow reveals fragments from a singleblack & white negative taken in 1903, depicting the summit of a mountain in New Hampshire, USA. Captured ona glass plate, this photographic object has been in circulation for over a century, before I deliberately smashed it.This, some might say, extreme gesture came aboutfrom wanting to explore the inter-relationship betweenthe photographic image and material object. Workingfrom the writings of Elizabeth Edwards, (Edwards, Hart:2009) and others, who focus on the materiality of the photographs to gain a greater understanding of their meaning,value and context. The work explores how fragmentation activates an awareness of both image and objects, simultaneously. This artistic research is a collaboration with thephoto-object, however learning the photographers’name – Henry A. Stanley – and discovering informationabout him, he transitioned out of obscurity and I want toacknowledge Stanley’s input in the work. Grappling withthe ethics of destroying someone’s creative work in order to create my own, this text explores similar gestures fromart history. By shattering the negative to create something new, theresearch must acknowledge the artwork would not havebeen possible without the efforts of Henry A. Stanley, anda photo-object that gathers new meanings, understandingand interpretation beyond us both.