Al Sol (To the Sun) is a photographic installation based on my collection of analogue photographs (in both color and black and white) of people lying out sunbathing.
This project consists of exposing these photographs to the sun until they have become decolorized. Staying true to the naïve realism of the amateur photographer, and the popular belief that innocently identidifies the photo with the person (without further questioning representation, staging, etc.), I seek to feature light as an agent that enables and destroys the photograph, and consequently highlights the relationship of photography with life and death.
To the Sun shows how all images are in movement – including images that to our eyes seem static. As such the installation would show images in their different stages of decolorization (indicating the passing of time, and destruction).
Al Sol has a direct relationship with the use of photography in cemeteries (those many sunburnt portraits facing out from niches), and all the religious symbology contained in a Christian cemetery chapel (connected with verticality transcendence-resurrection/horizontality-peace-death). The installation can use either the floor or the wall.