It Wasn't The Silence of Silence, ©Carine Idy — *It Wasn't The Silence of Silence*, ©Carine Idy

Interview by Shibei Xu

I noticed that in this series each photo has a border, unlike some of your other work. What are you trying to communicate with this creative choice? The border made me think of polaroid photos that create a feeling of casualness and intimacy.

Each photo in this series does indeed have a border. My intentions were to evoke the nostalgic feeling we get when we look at an intimate photograph in an album.

I really love the name of this series, and the photos do convey a feeling of loneliness and silence, and entrapment. Were these themes you considered when creating this work, and how did you come up with the name?

The title is inspired by one of my favorite books The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. I pulled the title from a phrase that spoke to me deeply: « It wasn’t the silence of silence. It was my own silence. » The book was an inspiration to me because it was about mental illness, loneliness, entrapment , amongst other themes. So my intentions were indeed to evoke these themes in my series as they pertained to my struggles growing up.

I am attracted by the light and shadow effects in your photos. Your statement on this series mentioned “And the shadow, stark and looming as it moves across the images—progressing even as we pause to consider” Can you explain this sentence in more detail?

I played a lot with shadows, highlights, and overall contrast in this series to speak about the connotations of light and darkness. The light being the hope, the triumph. The darkness being the obstacle itself, the ambiguous but looming feeling that is hard to put your finger on. It’s the obstacle that one can not escape or avoid but have to eventually confront.

In your artist statement you chose the word “maze” to describe your feelings, why did you choose this word? What do you want your audience to gain from your navigation in your “maze?”

I chose the word « maze » because these images are a portrayal of me navigating my feelings with no clear path in the horizon. I attempt to find my way out of the maze— understand the complexity of these feelings, and try to make sense of them. There is no one way or particular path out of a maze and so I would like my audience to identify within the visual elements at play in each photograph their own way of navigating personal experiences and somehow find understanding in the complexity and the push/pull of what may see like mundane moments.