The Fabric: Abandoned Curtain to Photo Prop
Once Thrown Away
I believe that the lifespan of an object rests in the eye of the beholder.
Last November when moving out of my apartment, I noticed that my roommate had left behind his curtains when he moved out a few weeks prior. Sensing that an opportunity to reuse them will later come along, I brought the curtains to my new location. As anticipated, the beginning of this year found a chance to repurpose the curtains for a photo project. I am glad to report that after a combination of time, cutting, and sewing, the curtains ended up serving as the main aspect of my most recent shoot. In fact I was fortunate to use them for a few other expressive photos, but the main purpose was for the project which you will see in this post.
So you may be asking: “What did you do with the curtains?” Well, I took the two to three curtains and turned them into one long, approximately 25 foot strip of fabric. After hours and days of cutting and sewing by hand, the curtains, once thrown away became a nice and sturdy strip of fabric. When I tell you that the estimate length of the fabric is about twenty five to thirty feet, it is because frankly I haven’t measured it. What I do know is that it’s long enough to span an entire room.
The Representation
Passive
Why is the project named passive?
Let’s discuss this photo project.
Ever since reaching the age of thirty I have been appreciating more deeply the opportunity to simply be alive. One thing that has been fascinating me is the undeniable reality that nobody knows what our individual lifespan is. What most of all know is when we were born and how old we might be today, at this moment. What we will never truly know is when we will pass, when we will die. Or as some of us would say, when our end is. What makes this intriguing is the fact that most of us live every day, never knowing if today will be our last, or tomorrow, or in 50 years. We just live day to day, innocently, unknowingly.
The long fabric to me is the representation of the length of our lives - we don’t know where the end is, but yet here we are doing what we do every day. We might be talking to a friend, brushing our teeth, daydreaming, dancing, crying, working, yet in every frame of our lives, there is that line. It is “just there”, quietly existing with us.
This line is passive.
Gentle, coexisting with us, passive.
Now for those who may be feeling uncomfortable reading this, this is not meant to bring up any fear. If though, it is raising anxiety in you perhaps this can serve as a wakeup call for us to live with a little more intention, a little more motivation, a little more honestly. To me, the passive line is simply an indication of where we might be in our lifespan, and I hope to simply breathe with it.
All of the photos were shot on medium format film with my still favorite Kodak 400. For more technical information feel free to drop a question below.
Big thank you to the wonderful model Tenzing Kalden with MMG.
Hope you enjoyed, more to come soon.
Masumi