Featured Photographer: Fanzutti Flora’s Series “Erosion”
"Every act of creation begins with an act of destruction." This may be one of the most widely used quotes in creative history. Picasso was indeed correct, but few artists have been able to embrace this paradox in a way that doesn't mock this important lesson by destroying solely for the sake of creation.
Fine art photographer Fanzutti Flora’s series Erosion embodies this concept of creative destruction and takes it one step further. By applying it to a medium that is usually considered static, the photographic negative. Flora embraces the fact that just like humans and the world around us, photographs are vulnerable to physical and perceptual changes over time. Not only do the chemical components of each print or negative degrade slowly, but they change with our ever-evolving sense of perspective of the world we live in.
Flora takes these universal truths and attacks them head-on by directly working with her physical negatives with creative operations to speed this process of destruction up from years, to in some instances, a few seconds. Through this process, she constructs one of a kind unique photographic experiments that are as abstract as they are visually entrancing.
Originally captured on Ilford 4x5 black and white film using a Sinar 4x5 Camera and a 150mm lens, her portraits are then developed with caffenol before being subjected to their own personalized chemicals and ingredients. Each recipe is unique but all have the same end result: to destroy their intended purpose and create brand new works of art that are impossible to create in-camera. Each image is manipulated for a few seconds to a few months using materials ranging from household chemicals such as cleaning supplies to food, up to 20 times until Flora’s desired result is accomplished. The beauty of her process is that it is open-ended and improvised, just like our own lives. She doesn’t know how long or how fast she will get to where she is going but it’s the journey into the unknown that makes her feel alive. She told us that, “Photography is a way to experience the world and its limits. I feel my relation to photography and to the world is moving all the time. I'm not looking for answers. I just want to find, manipulate, and express sensitive links between my subjects and myself.”
The portraits found in Erosion are both dark and disorienting, though, they weren’t originally intended that way. Flora wanted each portrait to be surrounded by its own matter (or inspiration taken from each subject), sometimes sublimated and sometimes totally destroyed. Her experimental process is more about the act of the process than the end result. She shared with us that “I don't feel like I'm torturing the negatives or the portraits as some people suggest it. On the contrary, I feel I'm more opening a door so the matter and the image’s personality can emerge”. After all, “I can be satisfied with the results of my experiments, but I enjoy the process the most. It's where I feel alive and connected when I am destroying my own art for the small chance of something greater.”
During my manipulation experiments, I often reach the point of no return, where the degrading process leads to an acceptance of changes and sometimes complete loss of the original image. This process in itself has been incredibly therapeutic. It has taught me to both let go and be more confident in the midst of change and uncertainty.” To Flora, this process is like a conversation: “I am searching for the contrast between the image and its materiality, creating tensions in the appearance of each image as other facets of it disappear. Acting on the film surface itself is a way to infuse and sculpt time in my photographic works.”
Overall, Flora's work is more than just her experiments and philosophical musings of our beloved medium. The galaxies of destruction that are conjured in her creations allow us to spend hours or even days staring into the abysses of her subjects. They remind us that there is an unlimited depth behind every photograph, process, and subject; you just have to know where to look. We are looking forward to what Flora has in store for us in the coming years, as she is an artist to keep your eyes on! Connect with Fanzutti Flora on her Website and Instagram!
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michael Behlen is an instant film addict and the founder and publisher of Analog Forever Magazine. For the last 6 years, Behlen has become an obsessive community organizer in the film photography world, including launching the independent publishing projects PRYME Magazine and PRYME Editions, two enterprises dedicated to the art of instant film. Through these endeavors, he has featured and published 200+ artists from around the globe via his print and online publications.
He has self-published two Polaroid photobooks -“Searching for Stillness, Vol. 1” and “I Was a Pioneer,” literally a boxed set of his instant film work. His latest book, Searching for Stillness Vol II was published in 2020 by Static Age. He has been published, been interviewed, and been reviewed in a quantity of magazines and online publications, from F-Stop and Blur Magazine to the Analog Talk Podcast. He loves the magic sensuality of instant film: its saturated, surreal colors; the unpredictability of the medium; it’s addictive qualities as you watch it develop. He spends his time shooting instant film and backpacking in the California wilderness, usually a combination of the two.
Connect with Michael Behlen on his Website and on Instagram!