Come take a trip. Explore the tousled foliage of Colombia, or maybe the creepier bits of Warsaw. Understand the culture, the nature — the experience. Photographer Hannah Collins allows her viewers to hop into the very photographs she’s taken. Playing with image scaling, Collins’ printed photographs allow viewers to be fully immersed regardless of where they are standing in the gallery. Most of her prints are unframed, allowing the viewer to fall into her photos and the world in which they were taken.
Collins has taken over the Camden Arts Centre with her exhibition running until 13 Sept. Spilling with her photographs, viewers trek through graveyards, tattered streets, forests — though one exhibition and through one world. But Collins understands living involves more than seeing the colors or the shading of our planet. Experiencing goes far beyond what the human eye can comprehend.
With this in mind, Collins takes the immersion further. Her exhibition features audio, written and several other elements to complement the lands she’s photographed. Silkscreened text helps describe pieces of culture in Colombia and the Amazon: silkscreened and a temporary placement in the gallery to give it a nearly invisible property. The text fades in the background for the viewers, just as culture fades and becomes assimilated once experienced for long enough.
A sense of connection ties the exhibition together. Collins’ art takes her viewers around the world and slides them down the calendar. Her displayed works span across three decades in addition to several niches of the world. Cultures are sewn together and stitched with unity between snapped photos, music, text, spoken word — art that exemplifies culture and connectivity over the years and kilometers.
