on view at PS1’s Northside gallery Nov. 15 – Dec. 14, 2024
Fridays 4-6p, Saturdays 12-3p, and by appointment

In the installation ‘A disturbance in the air’ moving image portraiture, text, and interventions in the gallery space are used to explore gendered experiences of seeing and being seen. The title refers to Aristotle’s understanding of what light was, as well as the change of atmosphere we sense upon realizing we’re being looked at. From a young age, women are taught to survey and assess their appearance, and to attach their worth to it, leading to a split internal experience of becoming both the surveyor and surveyed. Photography has been theorized as both escalating and making literal this objectification; the subject becomes a photograph, an object.

Despite how femme-coded individuals (and other visible marginalized peoples) have been harmed by an external and internalized objectifying gaze, the field of vision is also an important place of connection in our culture. It is possible for the gaze to be reciprocal and affirming. Psychoanalyst DW Winnicott has emphasized being seen by one’s caregiver in childhood development as a crucial validation of one’s existence, arguing ‘the precursor to the mirror is the mother’s face’. And theorist Ariella Azoulay has redefined the photographic portrait as an ‘encounter’, a series of relations between photographer, photographed, and viewer, all of which are active participants. This work plays with these tensions, attempting to create a space of potential for vision and visibility to be transformational.

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Clare Samuel is a visual artist originally from Northern Ireland, now living in Toronto, Canada. She holds a BFA from Toronto Metropolitan University and an MFA from Concordia University. Her work focuses on connection and distances between the self and other, as well as notions of social division, borders, and belonging. Spanning mediums such as photography, video, text and installation, her projects are often a dialogue with the idea of portraiture. She has exhibited internationally, most recently at OBORO, Belfast Exposed, and VU Photo. She teaches at York University and Toronto Metropolitan University. Her practice has been supported by Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council and Toronto Arts Council. Clare is co-founder and co-director of Feminist Photography Network, a nexus for research on the relationship between feminism and lens-based media.

Support for this exhibition is provided by the Toronto Arts Council, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and the Iowa City Downtown District.