2022-2021
Two-body photobook
During a family vacation in Orlando, when I was 8 years old, I felt for the first time the desire to take photographs. After days of convincing my dad, he agreed to lend me his compact camera for two photos. At the Seaquarium, during the show of the orca Lolita, I watched my father press the shutter at the precise moment when the great dolphin jumped over the pool water, showing its whole body. Without seeing the result, I knew my dad had captured the perfect moment. With the intention of imitating his action, I asked for the camera for the bottlenose dolphins’ show. The excitement of having the camera in my hands made me unable to wait for the show to begin. This is how the first photo I took is of the greenish water pond, with a platform that reads “Flipper’s Beach Party,” but with no animal in the scene. In my early adolescence, I began to feel a strong connection with whales. This bond began through dreams and drawing, and it evolved toward the sciences, history, and mythology. I find in their evolutionary transformations, their migratory routes, and their cultural representations a reflection of my identity.
Monocular is a two-body photobook and a photo installation. The work takes its name from the monocular vision of whales, since their eyes are located on the lateral sides of their face, projecting two independent images that never overlap. This metaphor alludes to the containment and coexistence of two poles within the same container, and also to addressing the relationship between the sciences and the arts. The photobook can be read in three ways: from the left side, where the sequence of images and their montage represent the functions of that hemisphere of the brain, such as logical thinking, linear temporality, and experience based on reality. From the right side, where the assemblage of the photographs symbolizes the activity of that hemisphere, such as abstract thinking, the emotional, imagination, and creativity. And finally, through a simultaneous reading of both bodies, containing the narrative of a double gaze.
The research demonstrates similarities between artistic and scientific research, among them testing, observation, analysis, inquiry, exploration, creative thinking, the gathering of evidence, and fieldwork, where both mistakes and successes are important parts of the process. In the specific case of Monocular, it is grounded in the study and observation of whales, through the photographic apparatus, enabling a harmony between both disciplines, which share the purpose of understanding the world through the sensory and the cognitive.
For «Meu Pai», Wady Adum Sawaya.