NOTHING HAPPENS TWICE
“No day is ever the same,
no two nights alike,
no identical look in the eyes,
no two kisses that repeat.”
The poem plays in the background. It is Wistawa’s own voice that gives it its melody and rhythm. I immerse myself in it and move through each word with a snapshot that becomes eternal. I close my eyes and know that nothing will happen twice...
This series of Polaroid self-portraits explores and questions the unique image that this format offers us, a priori.
Through an adapted cable and the sonar system built into the SX-70 camera, I give myself over to following the impulse and photographing myself. I can explore how this poem influences me; it is my body that becomes wrapped up in it, and the two become one.
Once it becomes matter, I submerge the photographs in water. I remove the film’s layers one by one until the negative is laid bare. I recover it forever from oblivion.
Is the Polaroid image only one thing? Is it a flower or a stone? Wistawa’s own poem asks itself the same question.
The ambiguity between the single image and the image that emerges from stripping away the layers and chemicals captivates me. I frame it, I hang it, I exhibit it. It is done.