Top Half, 2021

This photobook project represents an archival catalogue of my garments that covered my “Top Half” in the beginning of 2021. This book takes the shape of a booklet presumptively created by a museum to document new items added to their collection. Brief, objective depictions of the clothing strikes an anti-photographic aesthetic. The pictures themselves are homogenous in fashion. Each garment fluctuates very little from the last, revealing the wasteful gluttony of consumption. As a photographer, I tried to play an archivist or historian attempting to authentically represent the objects, not capture their beauty. The fictional photographer of this scenario aimed to take accurate pictures as quickly and uniformly as possible.

As the reader flips through the booklet, the series of images will represent a pseudo-biography of the owner’s belongings (mine). Through the act of looking at what I wear, collect, and hang up, the reader will unknowingly learn about me. I hope for the viewer to wonder who’s belongings are featured in the catalog, how the museum came into acquisition of the items, and why the museum found them historically significant.

The images herald little attention themselves because the meaning goes far beyond the picture. The pictures are somewhat supplemental and exist as a tool of identification. A single image has little meaning on its own. The meaning of this photobook is only achieved by amassing the images together within the context of a catalog. This catalog, an object itself, could be distributed within the museum and hold a history in of itself. A photobook cannot be separated from the circumstances in which it was created. How will history remember these objects when the owner’s voice is gone?