Abstract:
This essay, which accompanies my photographs of subjects in urban spaces, addresses the question of how photography can act as a mechanism to expand notions of the unconscious. It explores the latent landscape of photography in parallel to psychoanalytical theory. Photographs evoke a mirrored interiority. The photographer, the subject and the viewer are implicated in a triangular relationship which mimics familial roles of action and observation. Drawing from the contexts of 19th century and contemporary photography I consider how a selection of artists address ambiguity and identity within their art practices. Critical to this essay are Julia Kristeva’s theories of alterity, centred around the figure of the female and revisioned by recent theorists.