PLACE

Blind

Ním Wunnan

Challenger: 0-Ring Failure

Graphite on mylar

Challenger: Explosion

Sumi ink on mylar

The MS Chitra

Sumi ink on mylar

Great White Shark Caught (image not online)

Sumi ink on mylar

Artist Statement

The images in this series come from jounalistic photographs which were presented as a means to communicate something significant about compelling subjects.  When presesented with a captive image, it is easy to investigate the formal detalis of the picture and come away with a sense that you have gained a useful knowledge of what happened.  This is essentially a literal interpretation — finding what is discrete and communicable about a whole event or person.  The intensity or deep specificity of the moments captured in the image become secondary to the things we can be certain of, despite the fact that these remarkable, inscrutable aspects of the image are what drive the photographer to capture the image and the viewer to absorb it. 

Among all the other uses of photography, photojournalism survives on a combination of sensationalism and dispassion.   The shock and the fact of these pictures are inseparable — the view is presented with unfathomable images in authoritative detail, taken from masterful perspectives,  and usually accompanied by paragraphs  of descriptive text.  The question of “What is going on here?” assumes a hidden truth that can be excavated from the image.  As if to say that if the image of the moment is distributed widely enough, our culture will understand that moment. 

Obscured is an ongoing attempt to use these subjects and the interruptive artifacts of the medium to question and sabotage the process of communicating or capturing real events, places, and experiences through representation. 

Ním Wunnan will be lecturing about his process of creating Blind on Sunday July 10th at 4pm.