From Here to Eternity

From Here to Eternity is a photographic project made up of 50 still images drawn from Hollywood films sampled over a sixty year period. The images span from the ‘golden age’ of cinema censorship in the early 1900s to the ‘sexually liberated’ era of the 1960s, featuring scenes from films such as: From Here to Eternity (1953), Some Like it Hot (1959), Another Time Another Place (1958), North by Northwest (1959), Goldfinger (1964). In the work, still images are captured from films to represent the sexually unrepresentable. Taken from the flow of filmic narratives, these moving images are rendered still and photographic. They are projected in an endless loop on an outmoded Kodak slide projector.  

The digitisation of historical celluloid films has created an archive of cinematic styles, narratives and censorship. This project uses photography to draw attention to this subtle, implicit language of film making. This project considers the way that implicit language used in film is often overlooked when compared to the explicit presentation of sexuality in the contemporary era. It shows that outmoded photographic objects and technologies can help us understand the ways that cultures make stories about their bodies.

This work was exhibited in Breathing Room, curated by Jaime Tsai, as well as in the solo exhibition, From Here to Eternity at the Centre for Contemporary Photography, Fitzroy, Mebourne in 2015.