Speech (Inauguration of camera obscura)

Pia Arke’s original speech for the inauguration of her CAMERA OBSCURA at the Drawing and Photo Technical Lab, The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen, May 29,

The Danish text reads:

Speech for the inauguration of the camera obscura box, Tuesday, May 29, 11 am

It is only now that I am going to be making the images for which the box has been created. Nevertheless, I need to stop up for a moment and take stock.

Just like the topping out ceremony for a house or the naming of a ship before it is committed to the waves, I am hosting this inauguration for my new camera before it is sent out to take pictures.

During the construction of the box, I have had many thoughts about the idea of building a whole little home for the taking of pictures. That I have chosen to do this is primarily due to a desire to be united with the instrument that creates my images. By having created the instrument myself, built it with my own hands, we have become attached to one another. By building the apparatus my own size, so I can be inside it, I can become one with it body and soul.

In my choice of the camera obscura to take pictures lies the discovery of a sense of belonging both with the camera and with the places where I take the pictures. It is diffi cult to explain. But through that belongingness with the ‘apparatus,’ I can connect myself to the places I capture in a way that is more the places’ than mine.

I have sought back to point zero. The camera obscura is where it all started. I also started once 30 years ago, and in parallel with my own history we shall accompany one another, the box and I.

1990.

Collection of the Pia Arke Estate

See also: Camera Obscura