Gestures of Demarcation, 2001
Photography, five C-type prints from medium format negative, various sizes
Gestures of Demarcation are a set of five large-scale panoramic colour photographs that use strategies of performance to camera to explore physical limits and boundaries of the body.
The images record an act, in which various anonymous participants are instructed to extend the skin of the artist’s upper body as far as possible. The gesture hovers between aggression and power on the one hand and a sense of trust and complicity on the other.
While clearly initiated by the artist, it is left to each participant to choose how and where to enact this gesture. Hence, agency and responsibility for the act is placed upon the collaborator – and by extension their choice affects the very tension central to the composition.
Each of the gestures is set against a backdrop of urban, suburban or rural landscape, enacting a formal relation between figure and environment.