How to Disappear / How to Reappear

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Johann Rashid

Friday 24 May – Friday 21 June 2013


This series explores a perceived reduction from moving image to still. Still photography freezes motion by implying the surrounding moments not captured in an image. Johann Rashid’s stills are taken from captured sequences of moving celluloid, so that the implied surrounding moments actually exist, but are excised when the chosen frame is selected, which adds a wry layer to the experience of interpreting the imagery.

Johann’s practice traverses performance, sculpture and film; there is a thread of tactility through his approach to each medium. He is interested in the effect the maker has on the made, and in the way his work can position the viewer as more than a voyeur, yet as the protagonist in his work.

As with any abstract image, the narrative or emotional resonance is largely brought to these works by its audience. Additionally, there exists an unseen evidence of the way things “really happened” on either side of the image.

The tension between the viewer imagining a surrounding story, and the withholding of the filmed evidence of that story, creates a suspended moment. It’s a film that does not progress, and leaves the viewer to unfreeze the experience.

l: Johann Rashid, Fever in the Deep, archival print, framed, 77.5 x 108cm, 2013.

r: Johann Rashid, I Stand Close / Not So Close, archival print, framed, 77.5 x 108cm, 2013.

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