invision - waking up to the inside
blocked - inner voice invasion can you hear me
noentry - neural highways of the Dreamworld,
a space we all navigate
daytoday - this moment has been captured alive
soul(e)scape - extracted pain behind bars
other-side - petal teeth blow in gusts of laughter
dearlight - inner light, soul deep toothpaste teeth,
crows feet
cornered - unspeakable truth............ words lie
pain-laugh - locked in the binary world -
two faced attention - on off; on off; on off; ...
yoni-call - “beaware”
sculled - throw back journey into recesses of snake brain
stretched - time prisoner, facing reality with skin mask,
pulling day into night
all images copyright of Kali van der Merwe
In states of extreme emotion during a period of intense personal crisis, I took these self-portraits.
The act of taking these photographs allowed me to possess my emotions as objects imprisoned within a format.
The process was one of exposing myself to my own emotional states by filming them, playing the video back to myself on television, pausing at points and taking still photographs. These chosen, frozen moments became reconstitutions of my painful emotional states.
The fascination and satisfaction for me at the time, was the process of capture; the holding, taking, shooting, seizing, grabbing, stealing an image. I was able to exteriorise and arrest my extreme emotional state I felt so inwardly imprisoned by.
I regard these images as an attempt to loose myself and my burdensome self-identity. The fact that almost nobody recognises me from these portraits can attest to some success in the endeavour.
‘Captive’ refers not only myself the subject/object of the photograph but also to the viewer. Being captivated by an image implies it has enslaved, held and restrained you somehow.
captive
running time: 5 min : 16 seconds