Fire on World
In Fire on World, Carmen Winant showcases a series of object that have all had another previous existence: the slide projectors came used (having likely whizzed round thousands of times already); the slides themselves were all found, purchased and recovered. Carmen Winant is not the creator of any of the images, nor is she the first to have used them.
These series of images do not unfold as a single story. Rather, across projectors and hundreds of discrete images, they weave together multiple narratives. Ones of protest, of birth, of women’s legs, of the moon landing, of entire structures – little worlds – on fire. Together they perform a choreography that moves in and out of step with itself.
At times, one series of images lines up neatly and then falls away. Ultimately and when taken together, they add up to a larger picture of social unrest and dissent. The Watts riots and abortion rights protests, among other events, depict in frozen time a world agitated – in deep despair and yet unwilling to do away with hope. Burning it all down is another way of beginning.
