Material

Material by Peter Fraser. First edition. First impression in near fine condition. Signed by Peter Fraser. Please see pictures. PayPal accepted, any questions please get in touch.

About Material

While working on my series ‘Deep Blue’ (1997) and visiting very high technology sites around the world, I often had to put on specialized clothing when entering ‘clean rooms’. This is because extremely small particles of matter, material or dirt, were not allowed to enter the operational space. Where research, or manufacture, was taking place at high levels of precision. In the late 1990’s, I began to reflect on these small particles. I considered how much money and effort was spent in the Western world trying to keep ‘dirt’ at bay or out of sight. I began to make photographs of ‘low status material’, under the bed, behind the fridge and so on. After some months working with this idea, in 2000, I was invited to be an ‘Artist in Residence’ at Strathclyde University, Glasgow.

Specifically, in the Dept. of Physics and Applied Physics. I then began to take photographs of equipment in the labs being used for ground breaking experiments. Researching ‘the fundamental nature of matter at a subatomic level’. So, for several months I was taking photos of ‘dirt’ with very low social value. Then I was suddenly making photos in an environment which had a very high social value attached to it. For some weeks I believed I was making two different bodies of work, but then it dawned on me that actually I could put the two bodies of work together making one unified project. Calling it ‘Material’, proposing a ‘democratic view of all existing material’. - Peter Fraser

Related Links

More books by Peter Fraser here.

More books by Steidl here.