Jeremy Bolen
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From the essay A Net for Invisible Things by Caroline Picard
......Such photographs redefine the parameters and expectations of photography, undermining its most basic tradition. If a photograph does not document some measure of light, then what? In the case of Jeremy Bolen, negative film can document radioactivity. The scarring of its surface appears like spots and halos of light; these look alien and abstract. They map the footprint of phenomena... .....onto paper. In Above/below ground and In the Fox River at NPL-11 (remnant of radiam dial company), Ottawa, IL photographs were placed underground in Ottawa, a town where Radiam watches were produced. Imagine all the employees—mostly women—painting tiny numbers on watch and clock dials. They used a radioactive paint called “undark.” Sometimes they painted their nails with the stuff to brandish show off glow-in-the-dark hands. People grew ill from exposure. More and more people. They stopped making the watches, and maybe because they didn’t have any better way to handle the town’s traumatic loss, they just tore the factory down. Contaminants leached into the ground, spilling into the water. More people (and plants and animals) grew sick. Bolen buried unexposed photography film in this town. It bears a record of the still palpable radioactivity, reminding us to respect what is invisible. Yet also, you see sediment on part of the Ottawa diptychs—this comes from the still-running river. -
above/below ground and in the fox river at npl-1
(remnants of radium dial company), Ottawa, IL, 2012
archival pigment print, unique print, sediment from fox river
14"x24" -
above/below ground and in the fox river at npl-11
(remnants of radium dial company), Ottawa, IL, 2012
archival pigment print, unique print, sediment from fox river
14"x24" -
above/below npl-8 (remnants of radium dial company), Ottawa, IL, 2012archival pigment print, unique print, sediment from fox river
16"x13" -
