ALINA - 12 portrait photographs

This series of 12 portrait photographs was produced as a result of a Photoworks supported artist’s residency. The researcher chose to spend that residency at the Royal College of Music in London. The aim of the research was to explore through practice-based research the visible signs of affective emotion through means of photographic portraiture. Each sitter is listening to the same piece of music, ‘Fuer Alina’ composed by Arvo Part in 1976 written in the tintinnabuli style. The researcher understood this style to imply “calm, exalted, listening to one’s inner self”.The photographs were taken in a studio space that encouraged the sitter to become a listener. The space was light proof and sound proof, dark and silent. The music begins to play and the sitter becomes absorbed despite the presence of the camera. During the second part of ‘Fuer Alina’, the portrait is taken, unexpectedly, just before the contemplative state of listening is interrupted by the bright flashlights. The 12 pieces were first exhibited in a solo exhibition at the Photographers Gallery, London, curated by Charlotte Cotton. A critic for The Times on 19th January 2005 commented that Alina was “deliberately undermining the dynamic of flattery and dramatic psychology”. A review of Alina was published in Contemporary magazine, no. 72, 2005, p. 60.Selected images appear in the Steidl/Photoworks monograph on the artist.