Change is good
As I try and figure out where the furniture will go, you can follow along here:
Onward!
Broken
Apologies. I had to break things to make them better. It’s a little bit ugly, and it’s going to be messy for awhile.
This too shall pass.
Artist Statement
Heather Champ (°1963, Ottawa, Canada) makes photos and media art. By taking daily life as subject matter while commenting on the everyday aesthetic of middle class values, Champ often creates work using creative game tactics, but these are never permissive. Play is a serious matter: during the game, different rules apply than in everyday life and even everyday objects undergo transubstantiation.
Her photos never shows the complete structure. This results in the fact that the artist can easily imagine an own interpretation without being hindered by the historical reality. By creating situations and breaking the passivity of the spectator, she wants the viewer to become part of the art as a kind of added component. Art is entertainment: to be able to touch the work, as well as to interact with the work is important.
Her works are based on inspiring situations: visions that reflect a sensation of indisputability and serene contemplation, combined with subtle details of odd or eccentric, humoristic elements. By examining the ambiguity and origination via retakes and variations, she tries to increase the dynamic between audience and author by objectifying emotions and investigating the duality that develops through different interpretations.
Her works are characterised by the use of everyday objects in an atmosphere of middleclass mentality in which recognition plays an important role. Heather Champ currently lives and works in San Francisco.
Created entirely by robots via 500 letters. Create your own here.
Message in a bottle: The Mirror Project
A long time ago, when the web was younger, when home pages were what we made, people would send me 300 pixel photos that were woven in to a hand coded, frames based site called Friends of Jezebel’s Mirror (FOJM). It was an adjunct site to my own collection of self-portraiture, something that I had begun while back in art school. It was 1999 and I was thrilled that people from all around the world would share their photos with me.
Derek Powazek gifted me the mirrorproject.com domain at the end of 2000 and Aaron Straup Cope spent the next few months coding up something wonderful. In June 2001, FOJM relaunched as the Mirror Project and grew to 33,928 strong before The Great Disaster in 2006.
Aaron and I would speak of bringing the site back from time to time, usually around a bottle or three of good wine. I was the one who was hesitant. So much had changed and the web now is a very different place than it was then. Blah blah blah. I finally got over myself and Aaron has been painstakingly rebuilding the site from backups. Geo-dork that he is, he’s included something new — “places“.
The Mirror Project is a time capsule. We’re currently not accepting submissions, but that may be only a matter of time and wine.
I’m dedicating the relaunch of the Mirror Project to Leslie Harpold and Brad L. Graham. They may be gone from our lives, but they are never far from our hearts.
Impossible Project Colour Film — an incomplete illustrated history
Top row: 08/2010, PX 70 Color Shade, First Flush, Polaroid SX 70.
Middle row: 03/2011, PX 680 Color Shade ß-1 test film, Polaroid 680 SLR.
Bottom row: 02/2012, PX 70 Color Shade Pioneer Edition Beta test film, Polaroid XS 70.
Not to be melodramatic, but my heart broke just a little with Polaroid’s announcement that they were ceasing production of their instant film back in 2008. I stockpiled as much of the 600 film as I could afford. It was a crazy times. Rumours abounded with where and for how much and the internet would descend, or at least the passionate few who saw the end times of instant film. I still have a few packs of 600 left. Would it be too weird to be buried with one? I’ll have to note that in my will.
From there, everyone seemed to take great pleasure in telling me that they weren’t going to be making “that” film anymore. Even this gentleman:
Me: “May i take your photo?”
Mim: “Sure….. You know, they’re not going to make film for that camera anymore.”
Well, he and everyone else was wrong. The Impossible Project picked up the torch and ran with it. Here’s Anne’s photo of “The lovely men of the factory”, and a few more of where the current film is being made taken last week.
The latest colour film (bottom row) for the SX 70 is simply gorgeous. You should definitely hang onto that Polaroid 600, SX 70 or Spectra camera. Then again, if you don’t want it, you can send it to me.
What January looked like
A glimpse of my 2012 365 tarot project. Otherwise, I’ve started to collect decks. If you happen to have a Victorian Romantic Tarot just laying around, I’d be happy to take it off your hands. ($250+ on ebay!)
Smitten Kitten
Valentine’s Day has become so loaded with crazy that I decided last year to pull it back and make it more meaningful for me. I created a small edition of “smitten” cards and mailed them to women who had inspired me over the previous year. I’m working another smitten project for this year, though I’m a wee bit behind. I’ll share the results of my labour.
My challenge to you: it’s never too late to celebrate the women who inspire you. Buy (or craft) a few cards and make their day.
Silver metallic “starburst” with magenta and red type. I <3 Gocco.
February 2012: a month of letters
I stumbled across Mary Robinette Kowal’s post about a month of letters a couple of days ago and haven’t been able to ignore the lure of such a lovely project.
In this day and age of digital tyranny, who doesn’t love receiving something in the mail that isn’t a circular or a pile of coupons for places you’ve never heard of?
Send me a letter before the end of February and I’ll send you something back:
Heather Champ
912 Cole Street #215
San Francisco CA 94117
Here’s the project page if you’d like to participate.
I’m still alive
For someone who used to almost break out in hives if I didn’t update my site daily, I’m not sure how it came to be that four months has passed since I last posted here on hchamp.com. It’s not like I haven’t been sharing bits and pieces. I upload photos to Flickr almost daily, blethered on Twitter with some regularity and most recently have fallen in love with Path. But the place that used to be my heart and soul online? Nada. It used to be that our home pages were the one place we had to express ourselves. Now, we’re torn hither and yon across the internet.
I do want to do a better job at documenting some of the projects that I’ve been working on. We’ll see how that works on.
Heather Powazek Champ never leaves the house without a camera. A Canadian by birth, she now calls San Francisco home. More »
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