Blank Media Collective

Garden Manifesto by Peter Day

Artist's Comments

The Garden Manifesto ends on July 29 2008 the day I left the property 9 Sandford Walk, Exeter Devon. It is a recording of a determinate space (garden) being recorded indeterminately. Representationally the images are a real time recording of my movement, and a final recording of the space detailing my presence and grace photographically. The images are recording me, the space behind the camera and my transient time photographically using the camera’s function; long hand held exposures and 'automatic' focusing. Quite literally the camera shutter punctuates and marks existence and documents my dynamic position.

The texts alongside the images detail a private letter and poetry written at the time I lived in Exeter. The use of texts eludes to a portrait outside of the image, a text an alternative point and existence. The text is narrative to the images and alludes to my previous writings made about photography and the experiential. An image creates a resemblance, a record and exists outside of the experience of the time photographed and the emotion at the time recorded. The photograph is mute in terms of the experience of the image-maker; the text is an aside, the voice off.