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THE BURDEN OF HISTORY
Essay by Deborah Spivak
 THE ETERNAL MOMENT
Essay by Amanda Douberley

to Alec Appl Alec Appl to Laura Turner Laura Turner

to Peter Johansen Peter Johansen to Joshua Welker Joshua Welker

to Anna Krachey Anna Krachey to Joseph Winchester Joseph Winchester

to Kurt Mueller Kurt Mueller to Virginia Yount Virginia Yount

to Cecelia Phillips Cecelia Phillips

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INTERCHANGE part 1 - summer 2007

Laura Turner

Laura Turner
Jules and Romance, 2006
C-prints
5" h x 7" w

Laura Turner
by Amanda Douberley

In photography, size matters. Advances in the printing process have allowed for the production of enormous photographs in recent years, photographs as big as murals, photographs even larger than history paintings. In light of this development, the most striking feature of Laura Turner's five-by-seven inch color photographs of domestic interiors, upon first glance, might be their size. They are small.

Turner approaches the issue of size not in terms of darkroom capabilities, but according to the imperatives of another apparatus — the camera. Larger photographs are shot with a camera that can accommodate a large negative (in Turner's case, a six-by-seven medium-format camera). Turner uses a larger camera to create photographic series of architectural exteriors, the most recent being a survey of Austin-area churches. The bulk of this apparatus is one reason why Turner's photographs of interiors are so small; she tried the medium-format camera indoors, but it just did not work. A light-weight hand-held camera loaded with 35 mm film proved to be much more amenable to tighter quarters and a greater measure of spontaneity, but the size of the film restricts the size of the photographs. Hence the smaller prints.

Yet, these technical constraints tell only half of the story. The aesthetic impact of Turner's small prints is that they really force the viewer to look. A door, a pair of shoes, hooks mounted on the wall to hang sweaters or jackets, all of these things assume a weight that would feel different if they appeared at life size. Peering into the frame is an experience similar to looking at the objects depicted in the mirror reflection at the center of Jan van Eyck's Arnolfini Wedding Portrait, where both the remainder of the room and the other people in it are revealed. Turner's photographs, however, are almost uniformly devoid of people, and yet they feel inhabited. Something has just happened; someone has just left the room; or, that person is about to walk in, breeze past the wingback chair featured in one print, sit down, and open up a book. These photographs approach the quality of a still life in the sense that what is represented is the stuff of our world, seeming to await activation by someone just outside the frame.

Turner demurs when asked if she stages her compositions. They appear to be snapshots that take advantage of fleeting conditions, as with the photograph of the back corner of a bedroom, just where the mattress hits the wall, which seems almost monochromatic due to the buttery light that fills the room. Turner saw this and picked up her camera. She could be quick without the bulk of a medium-format apparatus. The resulting photograph mediates between the decisive moment of the snapshot and the stillness of the tableau. A room, seen here in miniature, anticipates the next player's entrance.