Colin Halsey

Artist Statement

Death is a topic that connects and disconnects us all from one another. It takes those we love from us and can break apart relationships. But it can make us stronger through our bonds and the memories we have shared with our loved ones that have passed. Apart from that, death brings the greatest question every person has to think about, “What happens to me when I die.” This is a question I often think about, as well as the intricacies of death and its relationship with life. With us and our society.

In this project, I sat down with other people I found and asked them the big question. We have a conversation that lasts from three minutes to half an hour about death, in whatever way that the subject wants to take it. I reply, share, and ask questions but the conversation as a whole is pushed by the subject. How they want to discuss death and what they think happens when it comes for them.

This whole conversation is recorded using a digital or analog camera with an extremely long exposure to capture all of the details, movements, emotions, and reactions of the subject as we talk. The long exposure gives insight into the subject's mind and gives a feeling of who they are while also deleting and obscuring physical aspects of themselves making them appear ghostlike or skeletal. Making afterimage of the whole conversation very much their ghost and dead as well since we can only have the conversation once before it's gone forever.