elin o’Hara slavick
Silver Gelatin Contact Print of a frottage of the A-bombed Koko Bridge in Shukkeien Garden, 25ft x 6ft., 2009.
elin o’Hara slavick
Cyanotype of a fragment of a steel beam from the A-bomb Dome, 2008
Cyanotype of dead Hiroshima Flowers, 2008
elin o’Hara slavick
selection from Workers Dreaming, 1999-2006
“Workers Dreaming is a series of large color photographs of workers with their eyes closed. While standing in an old brewery that is now a gallery or in a coffee shop that was once a train station, I am struck by unmarked history, by the daily forgetting of those workers who built and worked in these transformed spaces and the invisibility of the workers there today. I imagine thousands of workers capping bottles, pouring steaming liquids, wiping their brows, sweeping the floor, collecting tickets, serving coffee and daydreaming. These imaginary, remembered and actual workers inspire the photographs. I want my photographs to transform the way we see, acknowledge, interact with and remember workers today. Although our eyes are open, we are often blind to beauty, to injustice, to cultural difference and to class structure. While the workers’ eyes are closed in my photographs, they see and know their situation intimately. Denying us their gaze but offering us a meditative space, they are empowered, lost in their own imaginings, desires, hopes and self-consciousness.” - read more of her project statement here.
elin o’Hara slavick
(clockwise from top left) Afghanistan, Bagdad, Lebanon, Pakistan
from Protesting Cartography: Places the United States has Bombed, 2002 - ongoing
elin o’Hara slavick
(top) World Map, Protesting Cartography: Places the United States has bombed, 2002 - ongoing. painting with pins
(bottom) slavick outside her office at University of North Carolina
“As an interdisciplinary artist, studio art professor, activist, and an American, I am compelled to confront difficult and complex issues in my work out of a deep sense of responsibility. I work from the privileged position of an American academic, but I am filled with guilt, shame, and horror due to my government’s policies and actions. The American media fails us day in and day out by providing propaganda and half-truths. Although I do not believe that people are tired of knowing the truth or incapable of empathy, I understand that it may be easier for most Americans to choose a state of denial. Protesting Cartography is my personal creative response, my attempt to confront and unravel this criminal knot of lies.” - Slavick, on Protesting Cartography
