A Collection of Souls from the Borderland

Wayne Belger

September 26 - November 4, 2006

Opening Reception: Thursday, September 28, 7-11pm

A Collection of Souls from the Borderland
A solo show of pinhole cameras/creations devoted to the subjects of their photographs by Wayne Martin Belger.

Along with accompanying photos, A Collection of Souls from the Borderland features 9 Belger cameras, 7 wall-mounted, 2 on custom tripods, including Deer Camera, the Sons of Abraham (9/11) Camera, the Yemaya (underwater) Camera, the Heart Camera, Wood Camera, Classic Camera, Yama (skull) Camera, Dragonfly Camera and perhaps most controversally, the HIV Camera.

"I love the idea of functional art," says Wayne. "And that art then goes on to create art itself," referring to the creative functionality of the cameras themselves. Designed and built around the idea of taking a specific shot, no two cameras shoot their assigned scenes in the same way. "To me, each camera is a working alter. And it usually takes a couple days before the theme of the camera emerges...and even longer for me to understand why." There are no lenses or mirrors---only light focused through a tiny pinhole in order to create an image on film; a pure reflection of what is happening at the moment with exposures lasting from 1.5 seconds to 1.5 hours.

The HIV Camera photographs people surviving with HIV or AIDS wherein blood taken from subjects and introduced into the camera, pumped through clear cylinders that push the blood between two sheets of glass mounted in front of the pinhole. The blood---mixed with other solutions---is the restrictive equivalent of a #25 red filter.

Using steel from the World Trade Center after 9/11 and aluminum, The Sons of Abraham (911) Camera also contains relics in resin combined with one block of 6061 t6 aircraft aluminum. The jagged WTC steel forms the pinhole and is faced in the direction from the South Tower, photographing Mosques, Churches and Synagogues along with Priests, Imams and Rabbis holding the Quran, Torah or Bible.

See Artwork