Annus Horribilis
Annus Horribilis [Horrible Year]
Curated by Adam Cable x Float Photo
Text by Curator Adam Cable | Resiliency characterizes the life of anyone pursuing creative work. Despite circumstances, setbacks, and failures, artists continue to find new ways to push forward and around whatever barricades they encounter. As we near the end of this annus horribilis, a horrible year, we wanted to create an exhibition that celebrates quiet victories, earnestness, and drive to continue making in spite of circumstances. While Annus Horribilis does not necessarily focus on the events of 2020, it does reflect many experiences of those continuing to live and create within a particularly challenging time amidst varied and significant losses. All works submitted were made this year but not exhibited or published before now.
Receiving nearly 150 submissions from across the world, we aimed to build a cohesive selection of works from a largely open-ended call for entries. Alongside these images are excerpts from accepted artists' short statements, describing how these respective practices were forced to acknowledge and evolve with our current times. Several artists, listed under honorable mentions, provided work that we could not include in the main exhibition but still wanted to share. We gratefully acknowledge the time and effort spent by all who submitted to this project.
Looking ahead to 2021, it is our hope that this compilation of images inspires a sense of resolve and anticipation as we continue forward, together, into the unknown.
Selected Artists / Mateo Guevara Lemeland, Britt Thomas, Charlotte Roger, Megan Bent, Vanessa Johnson, Cora Angel, Fahsai Janjamsai, Mia Thompson, Nathan Rochefort, Julianne Nash, Vassilis Konstantinou, Chelsea Hirons, Taylor Galloway, Josh Slan and Granville Carroll.
Honorable mentions/ Sean Wang, Kathryn Weinstein, Kyra Johnson, Sebastian Sarti, Jennifer Sakai, Lily LaGrange, Emily Mueller, Balázs Varga, Matteo Capone, Sharon Draghi, Cree Vitti, Aaron DuRall, Presh Johnson-Arabitg, Amy Fleming, André Ramos-Woodard, Elizabeth Bailey, Lindsey Kennedy, Sebastian Siadecki, Joey Aronhalt, Cristina Embil and Roger E. Echegoyen.
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Selected Artist: Fahsai Janjamsai
Selected Artists
I hope to keep making pictures to remind myself that time is moving forward, that we will overcome, that we can hug our families again.
Taylor Galloway
http://taylorgalloway.com
It’s felt like five years in one day, anxieties coming from simply opening my eyes to my room. The sun heating my skin at 6:45am. Saturday feels like Monday. The year came just as soon as it presented itself and I haven’t figured out how to feel okay.
These photographs I return to in order to mark the time, from the drop in gas prices, to the setting sun in the desert. From the chatter to the quiet. I hope to keep making pictures to remind myself that time is moving forward, that we will overcome, that we can hug our families again.
I decided to take a photo set of something that reminded me of this pandemic, with something i found in my house.
Fahsai Janjamsai
During quarantine, I got stuck in my house for months. I was so interested in taking pictures of the Covid situation, but couldn't get a chance. Therefore, I decided to take a photo set of something that reminded me of this pandemic, with something i found in my house.
For the theme, I tried to make it colorful and not too depressing to cheer me and others up. And lastly, as a representation of the well-known virus all over the world, I used bubbles. That's why I named my work "What's poppin?"
My photos this year have been quiet, nostalgic, distant. They are a direct reflection of what 2020 has been for me.
Vanessa Johnson
www.vanessaisela.com
I graduated from undergrad in December 2019, thinking that 2020 would be my big entrance into the real world. Needless to say, this year has not been what anyone expected. My life has been a series of rushing to the next goal, but this year was a mandatory pause in the hustle.
In the pause, albeit anxiety-ridden, my photographic process has undergone a dramatic shift. My photos this year have been quiet, nostalgic, distant. They are a direct reflection of what 2020 has been for me.
Over this past year, the inability to travel created the perfect time to begin documenting the area, all within a few hours of my apartment.
Josh Slan
www.joshslan.ca
I recently started documenting Muskoka — a region in Ontario home to quintessential Canadian small towns, as well as the cottages of city dwellers from Toronto and Ottawa.
Growing up I spent my summers on the lake at my grandparent’s cottage in the area, and became increasingly more interested in the region as my photographic outlook evolved.
Over this past year, the inability to travel created the perfect time to begin documenting the area, all within a few hours of my apartment. The images I am submitting are some of the first images from the project. It began as a broad documentation of the small towns, but as I continued to work I became particularly interested in analyzing the dichotomy between locals and cottagers in Muskoka.
As I took photographs of frozen old pictures, I imagined that the love they represented was, indeed, eternal
Charlotte Roger
www.instagram.com/cha75979
How to heal this year?
This year was for everyone extremely tough. More than ever, I needed to create a space where more poetry and emotions could take place. A poetic bubble where I could escape from the rest, and introspect.
I explored love as a way to heal this crazy year. A while ago, I had found a trove of photos in a second hand shop. Some of them pictured couples, from different times. Yet, here they were forsaken and forgotten in this second hand shop. It made me wonder how you could sell eternal love from your ancestors to an antique shop. When this pandemic started, I opened the box where I kept these pictures and started to think about how to delve into their poetry.
I thought ice was an interesting material since, according to my interpretation, it represents eternity and conservation, but also fragility. Also it was good, after the recent digitalization of our lives, to go back to a more organic material and create what I could with what I found at home.
As I took photographs of frozen old pictures, I imagined that the love they represented was, indeed, eternal - something comforting in uncertain times...
This time has been tumultuous, but in that chaos, I have found peace and direction.
Granville Carroll
www.granvillecarroll.com
2020 has presented a lot of unknown challenges, emotions, and experiences to me. My art practice has always been about exploring the space of the unknown. The pandemic allowed me to dive deeper into these concepts.
In quarantine I began contemplating my purpose as an artist more than I have before. The BLM protest pushed me to question the role I play as a Black artist in the way we continue to talk about race and representation.
This time has been tumultuous, but in that chaos, I have found peace and direction. My role as an artist is to provide healing. These images are an expression of my healing. They explore the origin of self and the constant cycle of creation and destruction, life and death.
These images are from a new body of work titled, "In the Finite, Infinitely". 2020 is a year of reckoning, it can feel limiting and heavy addressing these worldly problems. With this work I present hope that in the destruction of our current paradigm we will rise from its ashes.
Given soap’s important role during the pandemic and its ability to disappear through use, I found that casting President Trump’s words in soap was an appropriate format for creating a permanent record.
Britt Thomas
www.britt-thomas.com
On February 27th, 2020, President Trump, discussing COVID-19, said, “One day - it’s like a miracle - it will disappear.” Struck by the willful ignorance of this statement, I started to record any words he said or wrote on the assured disappearance of the coronavirus.
Given soap’s important role during the pandemic and its ability to disappear through use, I found that casting President Trump’s words in soap was an appropriate format for creating a permanent record. The soap is colored with activated charcoal and laid on top of various white tablecloths.
Each phrase cast in soap takes approximately 24 hours of hand washing to fully wash away. The resulting cloth remains permanently stained though; leaving an imprint that will never fully go away. Much like the effects of Covid-19 and our leadership’s handling of this pandemic, it has permanently changed us.
I learned at a young age to always hide when I am struggling
Cora Angel
www.coraangel.com
We’ve Never Met but You See Me Every Day, is a project that I started before this global crisis even began but has since then transitioned into something more prevalent.
This series of self-portraits, depicting my isolated home life and the challenges faced as a hospital worker is a very intimate one.
Giving insight into my emotional health is the most vulnerable I have felt, for I learned at a young age to always hide when I am struggling.
The action of printing representations of disability onto leaves highlights the organic nature of disability, reframing it as a part of human diversity.
Megan Bent
www.meganbent.com
In 2020, as the pandemic spread through the US the bias towards Disabled People has become more socially acceptable and palatable. Since the spring I have been chlorophyll printing my experience of being isolated due to being chronically ill and immunocompromised. And the experience of the outside world demanding that people like me be acceptable losses for personal convenience or for corporate profit.
I use chlorophyll printing, which uses UV light to print photographic images directly onto leaves, to explore my experience of chronic illness and how illness/disability is represented in society.
I am interested in the disconnect in the way disability is most often understood as a purely negative experience and the way the fragility of nature is seen with a lens of reverence. The action of printing representations of disability onto leaves highlights the organic nature of disability, reframing it as a part of human diversity. The fact that chlorophyll prints are impermanent, and will continue to decay over time, asks the viewer to confront the interdependence and bodily impermanence we all share.
I started to photograph any and everything that I could sink my feelings of anxiety into
Nathan Rochefort
www.nathanemerson.net
I had always thought of myself as an introvert so February and March of 2020 were almost serene. I was insulated from the surrounding chaos in the comfort of my small upstate New York apartment. I enjoyed my newfound freedom from social obligations and spent my time making work and focusing on completing my degree.
Then the isolation continued and with no end in sight a nebulous anxiety started to form around me. By June of 2020 all the things that gave structure to my days; classes, work, friends, had all but disappeared. I felt untethered and my daily routine, or lack thereof, reflected it.
I began sleeping later into the day and staying up later and later. To try and combat my restlessness I began taking long, meandering walks at night, often into the early morning. While on these nocturnal strolls I started to photograph any and everything that I could sink my feelings of anxiety into. Anything that could displace, even for a moment, the oppressive fear and worry that had attached itself to me became a subject worth photographing. I began to focus on black and darkness – it isolates, engulfs, and estranges, a reflection of the events of this past year.
A diary of life in uncertain times, questioning the power we really have over our existence.
Mia Thompson
www.miathompson.co.uk
Umbrous draws upon the emotions and devastation surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic and was a way of me exploring as well as understanding what was a very confusing and unsettling period of time spent in lockdown with family.
My ideas stemmed from searching and using my homeland as a metaphor to reflect the death and fear in the world.
Alongside these images I set up a background in my garden thinking of scenes that I could capture to bring a sense of theatre to my work. The narrative builds on the theme of apprehension and transcends to showcase a diary of life in uncertain times, questioning the power we really have over our existence.
In a subtle manner, they attempt to perhaps illustrate the calm before the storm
Vassilis Konstantinou
www.vassiliskonstantinou.com
These photos were taken during the period of the quarantine and represent amongst other things the emotional conditions of fear and suffocation.
This is a part of my project under the title ''Pregnant Pauses''. These Pauses imply an ambiguous “before” and an uncertain “after”.
In a subtle manner, they attempt to perhaps illustrate the calm before the storm. Photographs standing still in blue, images encouraging the viewer to set them in motion, either in the future or in the past, ultimately revealing or hiding their secrets.
Because of this, the work I have made this year serves less to reflect pandemic life in American society, and more as an expression of a changing view of America and its values.
Mateo Guevara Lemeland
http://mateogl.com
2020 has been a year of both growth and digression. While I think my work has evolved quite a bit, the constant psychological struggle to stay above water created a very good excuse for creative stagnation, and I often had to fight to maintain any kind of meaningful connection to my photography.
For the last 9 months, I have been trying to continue a project I started in march which describes my tenuous connection to my home and the surrounding area of western Massachusetts. However, for reasons that should be clear to most, it has been very difficult to continue looking at our lives the way we did at the beginning of the pandemic.
Being isolated with little to take our minds off the news has highlighted and uncovered a great deal of problems we face in America, and has made me much more aware of the privileges I have had, as well as problems in American society as it stands.
Because of this, the work I have made this year serves less to reflect pandemic life in American society, and more as an expression of a changing view of America and its values. While I still photograph my home, over the course of the year the tone of this work has become increasingly discontent, in opposition to the deeply romantic way in which the powers that be would like us to view our lives. As a whole, while it has and will likely continue to happen incrementally, I, and my work, have become increasingly aware of where I stand in America, and the deeply rooted complacency that exists here.
This year forced me to stay put and go looking for details of Toronto that I never made time for.
Chelsea Hirons
www.chelhirons.com
I often attributed street photography to other cities and towns. It’s very rare for me to spend time walking around the city I reside in with my camera out due to always running late or commuting.
This year forced me to stay put and go looking for details of Toronto that I never made time for.
However, throughout it all, something deep in my soul yearns to continue to create
Julianne Nash
www.juliannenash.com
As artists we are inexplicably drawn to create, for better or for worse. This year has irrevocably changed the entire world at large, whilst also fully altering our individual outlooks. I for one, have struggled immeasurably with my deteriorating mental health throughout the past year; high anxiety, deep depression, constant fear, hypervigilance, et al.
I have fully questioned everything about my practice thrice-over: Why am I an artist? Does this even make me happy? Will the art world ever be as inclusive as it pretends to be? Will my career ever bounce back from a full year of setbacks? Why do I look for outside validation about my practice through social media? Am I still an artist if I make all of my money through bartending? I still don't have answers to any of these questions. I maybe never will. However, throughout it all, something deep in my soul yearns to continue to create; to be suprised by myself, to think deeply about what images can/cannot do in unprecedented times, and to feed that inner voice that refuses to give up on the dream.
Even when all plans to photograph were cancelled, I found ways to continue to create and think deeply about climate change by using found photographs. These panoramic collages are created using images labeled "#climatechange" from the USFWS free image database and combining them with screengrabs from google earth. For what it's worth, looking back on creating these give me a sense of peace that I can still create despite feeling as if I am falling apart. And, I think we should celebrate that desire within us all.
Honorable Mentions
