Margaret Salmon

2018

Video, 00:16:00 in loop.
Materials: double channel 16mm film transferred to digital on 2 Hantarax monitors

Collection: Stad Antwerpen, in langdurige bruikleen in M HKA (Inv. no. SCA0068).

Margaret Salmon (b. 1975, New York) draws inspiration from film movements such as Cinema Vérité, Italian neorealism, and the European avant-garde for her oeuvre. I You Me We Us attempts to capture the everyday human experience in minute detail, imbued with a sense of poignancy and poetry. Close-ups of gesticulating, playing, touching and writing hands are interspersed with images of plants and flowers under coloured light. The work focuses on the intimacy of showing affection through touch. It also is a reminder of the most important aspect of love, affection and care, namely human presence and interaction. 

In her double film, Margaret Salmon captures the everyday life of two women who live together and who explore erotics at the intersection of their bodies, now authors of brief letters; with their surroundings and other living beings, in the contemplation of beautiful blossoms. An act of ‘extimacy’ (a term used by José Luis Pardo to define the exhibition of intimate dimensions) in a domestic space, within the continuum of being together. Once again, a celebration of non-biological sisterhood, of non-reproductive sexuality. At the root of the word compañera (companion) we find pan (bread), and the companion is the one with whom bread is shared. Ponge also describes it, saying that “the crumb has a texture similar to that of sponges: leaves or flowers in it are like Siamese sisters welded together by all their elbows at once”. (excerpt from A sponge, a text by Javi Cruz)

Margaret Salmon is represented by Office Baroque Gallery.