lydia unsworth 

age 15

age 16

age 19

age 22

3 for 2

These tickets are the waste created in the daily job of "Price Control". The tickets are constantly changed as products go on and off offer, decrease and increase in price etc. There is a continual flood of tickets passing through the hands of the worker - the circle never ends, the job neither begins nor finishes, nothing is completed. The individual has it in his power to leave however the job will receive a new body to implement the necessary actions and, thus, carry on without him.

My work is a glimpse of an eternal action, a cross section of an irrepressable continuity. A continuity that has the potential to span far beyond one person's experience of time. 'Mundane' tasks are being carried out at all times and all moments. Repetition is an intrinsic part of reality. I aim to highlight this repetition, to capture its form as it manifests itself in physical matter.

The transparent bags allude to the idea of capture, of a stillness, a halt in movement. The tickets themselves exude the idea of action, of a particular action replayed over and over. This action has been interrupted, stolen for a time, snatched away from itself. The pause is brief, like a catching of breath. A weighing up of all which has taken place thus far... and then action resumes, life resumes, movement resumes and resumes and resumes and does not end.

The job continues, endlessly continues. Forever the same actions, identical gestures disappearing towards infinity. It is only the details that change and attract our fleeting gaze.

And somewhere inside this variation, of one word rather than another, lies the very essence of our lives.

The Actual Life of Lydia Unsworth: Somewhere Between 1982 and 2004

"The Actual Life of Lydia Unsworth: Somewhere Between 1982 and 2004"

A photographic record of my existence. Each and every negative in my possession contact printed and arranged in chronological order. Something about the reduction of a life into a few srcaps of visual evidence. Are these memories even memories anymore of merely pictures of a person or persons who no longer exist? How can something as transient as life be recorded? How can we retain what we have already lost? Each image is tiny, 'negative-sized' - the viewer must look hard to see the the individual images within this wall of shadows.
Each sheet of photographic paper is stamped with a stamp bearing the words "The Actual Life of Lydia Unsworth: Somewhere Between 1982 and 2004". As if this stamp somehow authenticates the images, makes them what they say they are. The stamp tries to convince and persuade that this life is real, that it most certainly exists, that there can be no question or flicker of a doubt. But there are gaps between the pages and gaps again between the images on each seperated page. These pictures are locked in the pigment of the paper, light trapped inside a material we cannot begin to penetrate.
Each page is pierced with a nail, hoisted against the wall, these memories hang limply for all to see.
In the end they mean nothing.

another party...

found image

current exhibition

http://www.wlct.org/arts/turnpike/exhibit.htm

The Past or Lot #3717617645

“The Past or Lot #3717617645” consists of a suitcase filled with old photographs purchased in bulk off the internet. This piece is to be displayed in a corner where it is easily overlooked and noticed only by chance out of the corner of one’s eye. The insignificants of the recent past are already forgotten and exist only as light captured on paper which is slowly fading…

Remnants of the Movements of Others

“Remnants of the Movements of Others” is a series of second-hand photo frames containing the selected photo indexes of strangers. Arranged in a cluster on the ground, the viewer has to stoop and squint in order to see these minute images. The unknown events and occurrences of other people are displayed here behind a veil of glass and another of scale.