I take photos. I can't help it. The story is of course much more elaborate than this. I could theorise it, put it into context… But when all is said and done, this is what I do — I take photos, all the time, of pretty much everything.
After graduating from her photography studies, Carmen Gray (Valencia, 1989) left her hometown and went to live abroad (UK, Poland, US, and finally the Netherlands). Now, after around ten years and graduating from Art History as well, she is finishing an MFA in London, UK. Learning Photography gave her a tool. Living in different countries and studying has been a way of discovering and collecting experiences, ideas, and material to work and experiment with. Eventually, her work is both, the collection of these years, like her ongoing 35mm diaries, and the reflection on them. An exhaustive documentation of a specific time, place, and community. A network of cities, friends, artists. She looks at the people around her, what they do, where do they do it. And why. This lived experience translates into an extensive archive of images, ceramics, videos, publications, and days going to the studio, thinking of the world as an exciting place to be in.
A Sunny Day in the Darkroom
HD Video / 23:00 min / 2023
Single channel version of the video A Sunny Day in the Darkroom. The video condenses a year’s footage shot with my hi8 camera into one day printing in the darkroom at school.
A two-screen installation in which my stream of consciousness is interrupted by the different steps of the printing process, blending a waterfall of thoughts with the immediate action of the darkroom.