Proof of Ghosts began as blog to document a body of work I developed through an Artists Career Enhancement grant from Arts Council Northern Ireland.
Originally the project was about how we establish identity through recording time. I was planning to explore it through looking at how photography reveals presence by capturing absences in stories eg: through negatives, shadows, shutters and the involuntary/sub conscious , and my methodology was based on shadow catching.
“One’s relationship to one’s own shadow -which is not the same as oneself, which one does not own, but which is an inescapable attribute and accompaniment, was for me a memorable conundrum. A midpoint between between a familiar self and the otherness of the rest of the world. It is both of one and separate from one’. William Kentridge, In Praise of Shadows, 2009 p20.
Most of my work takes place within Shadow Dial Studies. A research based practice that uses shadow catching as a photographic method to measure time and map place. I regularly use shadow casting as a way to explore ideas yet never autobiographical aspects of myself or others. I’d decided to begin doing this with my Dad as my partner and planned to find participants who would work with us by partnering up with a friend or family member of a different age for the project.
Joan Alexander 