Carolle Benitah

Initially Carolle Benitah work for ten years as a fashion designer she then moved on from this to photography and some would say she incorporated this in her photography. The French Moroccan photographer focused on themes around family, memories and the passage of time. Her work is very metaphorical and focus’ on manipulating old images using embroidery, beading and ink drawings. I like this idea of physically editing the photo to create a new meaning or give a photo meaning. This is something I would be interested in using in my project as I have done similar things in the past and would like to further explore it.

My favorite photo by Carolle Benitah is the one above. I like this photo as just like other photos she has manipulated this one in a particular way, that has a real haunting quality to it. This is most probably due to it being a photo of children with their mouths sown shut. The photos show violence as to sow a mouth shut is very violent. This what gives it this haunting, shocking quality. The only boy in the photo has his face covered by what seems to be pills, this could symbolize that he has been blinded by drugs, however this is just a guess. Yet again these  pills are red. The use of red throughout of all her photos is very clever and makes her photos distinctive. There is a use of red throughout her work often shown with red thread in this case it has been used to sow the mouths shut. Benitah explains the significance of the red in the statement below.

“I use a red thread, which is my connecting thread. It leads me through the maze of my past. Red is the color of violent emotions, the color of blood, of bad blood, it is also a color of sexuality. The beads chosen for their shininess and their delicacy accentuate the decorative element and create a discontinuity. I reintroduce the gestures of handiwork in this series and renew my connection with my previous work as a clothing designer.”

Embroidery in these photos where used out of protest as it was commonly seen for women to do this sort of thing waiting for the man to come back from work. She wants to denounce this and show it did not turn her into the “perfect wife” she was expected to be. She is using it to protest these sexist ideologies. There is phrase she uses that I really like when taking about putting the needle through the paper; “To embroider my photograph, I make holes in the paper. With each stitch, I stick the needle through the paper. Each hole is a putting to death of my demons. It is like an exorcism. I stab the paper until I don’t hurt anymore.” This is a powerful statement and one I will remember throughout my project as I have discovered in the past this kind of work can be very therapeutic, setting free any built up emotion.  It allows you to deal with things may not be able to deal with in the “real world”.

Another artist I taken inspiration from is also actually an ex Student. Matthew Knapman created a book all about his mothers life. His mother was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2014 that then spread to the rest of the body. This must have been a very difficult subject to do his project on. This has inspired me to cover a subject that is very difficult for me to cover. He also took inspiration from the artist above (Carolle Benitah). This is shown clearly throughout his book as he has changed these photos physically by burning, cutting and drawing over these photos. Again this is also something I’d like to continue from my exam project as I find this much more interesting and effective when conveying a meaning. When creating my book I want it to be full of emotion really showing the affect its had on my family and myself. I don’t want my work or photos to be shallow and have no meaning. If i come to the end of my project and I have no emotional connection with book and photos I have created, no matter what grade I achieved I have personally failed. I need this to have more meaning than achieving some grade and if I achieve a good grade that would be a plus yet that is not my primary goal.