Mourning Wall
Ellen Carey
2000
100 Polaroid Negative Prints
34"H x 22"W (each) or 10'H x 42'W (all)
Collection of the Artist
2000: Real ArtWays, Hartford, CT
2001: Pamela Auchincloss Project Space, New York, NY
2002: Museum of Contemporary Photography (MoCP), Chicago, IL
2014: Luckman Gallery, California State University, Los Angeles, CA
2015: The Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto, ON
Mourning Wall with the artist, Ellen Carey
Real Art Ways, 2000
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After Life, curated by Kristine Thompson
Luckman Gallery, 2014
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Part-Picture curated by Chris Wiley
The Museum of Canadian Contemporary Art (MoCCA), 2015
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Mourning Wall
Detail View
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Mourning Wall, a large photo-based artwork, is made up of 100 grey Polaroid negatives, each unique. This work was created with the large-format Polaroid 20 X 24 camera in New York City, one of five in the world. Starting from the floor, in 5 rows of 20 negatives each, this installation creates a rectangular gridded wall. This particular arrangement was designed in response to its first exhibition site, Real Art Ways. Mourning Wall can also be variously configured to fit other locations.
The negatives in Mourning Wall were created by exposing the black and white film to a white surface illuminated by bright light. The instant Polaroid process produces a one-of-a-kind negative in addition to the positive one. The white positive yields a grey negative, a metaphor for the absence of life.
The 100 images are symbolic of the 100 years of this past century and represent our collective loss through death: war, ethnic cleansing, AIDS epidemic, illnesses, accidents, murders, natural causes and disasters. It stands as a memorial to a global population that contains a sub-culture of grieving individuals.