Chamber Studies: Inside the Box

Sometimes a project starts as a fairly simple idea: we build a box. A metre in every direction, white inside. Then we see what a woman does in it: how she takes up the space, looks for shelter, explores the room.

For the shoot day we invited Yvi, and it was a really lovely day with lots of laughter. Barefoot and dressed all in black, she climbed into the box and tried out what is possible in such a tight space: leaning against the wall, legs up the side, curled up very small. The longer we worked, the bolder the poses became.

At the next session we used a box measuring 75 x 75 cm, as the first one had turned out to be too big. Again we got to work after a glass of fizz. This time, as well as medium-format film, we also made wet plates on glass (ambrotypes), likewise in medium format, 6 x 6 cm.

What it’s about

The box confines and liberates in the same breath. It offers shelter and holds you in. Photographed on film and glass, this small piece of architecture becomes a stage for images about confinement and release, hiding and being seen.

It is about the space you take for yourself, or the space that is given to you, limited or denied from outside. And it is about the tension between the limits you feel and the shelter that same space can offer.

Over time the chamber itself changed: smaller and larger boxes, and each time the body had to adapt. Only when the images are enlarged on paper do the formats match again. Then the body seems to shrink or grow, although it never changes. It is the space around it that shifts.

The grid

In the end we assemble the individual negatives into one large grid: chambers side by side, each holding a pose, a gesture, a moment of the same body. What emerges is not a single image but one body in many states at once. For us, visibility is not a single act but an ongoing process of self-assertion in space.

The project is a collaboration: the model’s feelings and interpretations help shape how the work comes about. As always, we worked in analogue, on medium-format film and glass, and enlarged both in the darkroom. All images are unique originals.