Collaboration is a big part of my project, as much as I am retelling the relationship through photography – a lot of the work relies on my partner to work with me and ensure that it is a balanced portrait of our lives together.
Wolfgang Tillmans refers to his photographs of his friends and lovers as “collaborative works, proposing that he leaves space for collaborating with his friends to ensure they properly impersonate the idea of themselves” As with Tillmans, I want to ensure that what my partner is performing for the camera is accurate to her and how she wants to be perceived.
In order to push this collaboration further my partner agreed to contribute poetry to the publication. Providing two distinct voices in the work is important to reflecting the nuances of our relationship.
I feel that by giving my parter further space to write the only text (aside from the introduction), we are pushing what Tillmans talks about beyond a conceptual portrait and towards a conversatoin within the book between the spreads leading up to and after the poems.
reference
Tillmans in Palmer, Daniel (2017) Photography and Collaboration: From Conceptual Art to Crowdsourcing, Bloomsbury Academic
CRJ 