Using a 4x5 view camera and the genre of portraiture as a starting point, I've begun a project, the centerpiece of which is collaboration with people photographed. Inspired by the desire to meet and create something new with others as well as to learn and share information about depleted uranium, an under-reported component of military weaponry, I'm working with subjects who determine in what way they would like to be represented, with eyes and/or faces obscured.
This project seeks to find a way to begin to recognize a relationship between us and children who have been born in Iraq with birth defects due to exposure to depleted uranium, including some children who are born with no eyes. I thought the best place to start this partly educational project was with friends who are primarily visual artists, who invariably find this especially poignant.
The slowness of the process of photography with a 4x5 camera creates a different time frame for personal interaction. The protection and/or withholding of identity of the subjects of the portraits and the representation of a kind of non-seeing, is a significant element in this project,
As part of the relationship transacted through the mutual creation of the portrait, I give the portrait subjects a press packet of information including detailed essays about depleted uranium and about the current simultaneous breakdown of the well being and social networks in the societies of elephants world wide, a topic which may be seen to be related.
My intention is that as pictures are added to the project, exhibitions will be developed, along with zine relating to events produced in conjunction with the exhibitions. In launching this project, I also created an on-line presence for the project to make a good part of it accessible to people anywhere. Please see www.depletedselves.com to read the material and to add your own image if you so choose.
by Cheryl Meeker
