slow apocalypse

I am thrilled that Solas will exhibit, for the first time, the original Slow Apocalypse 4x6" plastic machine prints made in the first years of this ongoing series. These little prints will be accompanied by contemporary large-scale commercial vinyl banners of other images in the project. I started Slow Apocalypse at the onset of the millennium, shot on color 35mm film and printed, or really spit out, at consumer photo labs. The materiality of the photos compliments the imagery, as the work illuminates our drive to make permanent our temporal existence. Plastic cannot go "dust to dust" and is symbolic of our desired immortality. The tagline for Slow Apocalypse, "we are all responsible for the images we leave behind", can be read in several ways: what visage, what evidence, what message are we transmitting or communicating for others to consume and understand? Our urge to "haunt", as Andre Breton calls our want to affect or wound, is illuminated as sad and humorous follies. When we really look at the cracks and stacks we can witness our own images crumbling, like empires, before our eyes. Like time, security is a construct. I'd like to think the project has the spirit of this quote from19th century photographer Adrien Bonfils, "before progress has completely done its destructive job, before this present which is still the past has forever disappeared, we have tried to speak, to fix and immobilize it in a series of photographic views."

— Brennan Cavanaugh