When the Wind Blew and the Time Stopped by Shantal Kim

From the artist:

“There are things in ourselves for which we cannot find words.

It seems like there is no exact word that punctuates the exact feeling that I have, at least in the pool of languages that I know. Tongue-tied, I struggle to speak, all the same, choosing not to explain it. Shoving the word deep down my throat, and burying it in my heart.

I also can’t explain why I felt so sad seeing the photograph of the Eiffel Tower yet unfinished. It was a weird photograph that made me look at nothing. It brought me to a strange timeline, to a past where I was certain of the future, which never happens in our lived experience. That dissonance made me just stare at the blank sky where there was nothing yet. At the same time, I felt melancholy, which I cannot explain. The photograph caught me and made me keep thinking about what it meant.

At the same time, I found I had a cranky desire that constantly challenged me to photograph what we cannot see. This optical object, the camera, is all about seeing. But I looked out for metaphors. Metaphors, I assumed, transfer something from one thing to another, a bridge to something more metaphysical. I got obsessed with the wind, which I cannot see itself but could visualize when it gets attached to something soft and flimsy. I hoped that while I was chasing the wind, I could photograph something that makes me feel like that Eiffel Tower picture. Something that made me stare at the blank.

It took me a while to have a pile of photographs to work on. I took a long exposure shot of myself, quite transparent behind the avocado tree, and took another picture of the same avocado tree shaking from the wind. I sequenced them in my photobook, first with me in, and then, the picture without me later in the book. I realized that when I was watching the later picture I was looking at the blank as well, trying to remember the image of the long-haired girl in the back.

Nicholas pointed out that my photographs make him feel melancholic and detached at the same time, and those two are not a usual pair. I was asked about why I was working on this body of work. I stuttered. It seemed like I was beating the bush here and there to explain something that doesn’t have a word. I wished that I had my work with me. This is what I feel, this is what I wanted to say. But having nothing in my hands, I had to explain it horribly. I couldn’t find words, or I couldn’t clarify my urge. Why did I have to take photographs of these things, was it to overcome the feelings of melancholy and seek catharsis? Was it about healing? No. That was not what it was about.

A psychologist-artist said that the little things that didn’t seem like a big deal hurt people the most, leaving internal wounds more than something external and large because they were never understood or shared. They lose their way out in the world, so they stay and carve the deepest. After letting the experience sit there for a while I realized what it meant, and I started to understand why I wanted to photograph all the things that I was making. I wanted a language. I wanted a word for something that didn’t have a term out in the world. The photographs were alphabets and the sequence was a sentence. I wanted a way to put something that I felt that couldn’t be addressed because there was no way to pinpoint it otherwise. Not to get over what I felt, not to feel catharsis, not to do anything else, but to put it into words. My photographs were the words, or at least that was my desire, to find my way out and be. The photographs stood there, sturdy and independent in their presence, pointing to an unbuilt future, in their own language.

Some things are lost on the way: the Eiffel photograph, me, vocabularies to explain something.”