Measure The Feeling Exhibition

MEASURE THE FEELING
Benedict Brink, Clare Shilland et Marie Déhé.

Elles ont commencé par appréhender leurs propres corps. Un sujet immédiat, disponible. Prendre en photographie sa nudité en miroir, pour mieux ressentir ce que d’autres leur offriront. Une pose. Viendra ensuite l’exercice de la bonne distance, pour elles-mêmes, et pour les autres. Entre l’appareil et le sujet, elles déffinissent un espace du consentement. Un espace physique, confiné entre les murs ou dispersé dans le paysage, et un espace mental, qui prend le doux nom de confiance.

Telle que définie de manière scientifique, la distance intime s’établit à moins de quarante centimètres entre deux personnes en interaction (Edward T. Hall, 1963). Elle intervient dans le plus petit intervalle de proximité, après la distance publique, la distance sociale et la distance personnelle. Dans la traduction photographique de Benedict Brink, Marie Déhé et Clare Shilland, l’intimité opère d’une science, plus subjective, du sentiment. Celui, entre autres, de la bienveillance qu’elles portent sur leurs corps et qu’elles déposent sur le corps de leurs semblables, leurs soeurs, leurs amies, leurs filles.

Pour chaque image, une seule enveloppe, ou son extrait. Avec peu d'apparat, elles rassemblent mentons, ventres, seins, et tissent en échos des conversations silencieuses. Le visage effondré d’une statue qui se fissure sous le poids des standards, le nombril exposé par la chair qui s’étire dans un paysage de peau en mouvement, le regard fuyant qui s’émancipe comme les branchages dans la nature. Les photographies sont réunies pour dépasser la solitude de leurs cadres. Réunies aussi Benedict, Marie, Clare, et toutes ces personnes sur les images qu'elles ont renommées - par la construction d’affinités et d’intimité -, proches.

Anne Bourrassé

Benedict, Marie et Clare souhaitent remercier:

Haydée Touitou, Hella Keck, Anne Bourrassé, Romuald Stivine, Léna Samson, Frith Kerr, Sarah Shattock, Imogen Walker, Claire Koster, Artifices, Laila Majid, George Nicolaides, Adam Todhunter, Erin Green, Ewa, Kesia, Lulu and Suzi, Gretchen Lawrence, Bird Production, Vertbois, Miriam Shuall, Kasper Kapica, Nina Chakrabarti, Marion Shilland, Lola Wicks, Mel Rigby, Toby Shuall, Dario Vigorito, Karima Hedhili, Samira Cadasse, Alexandra Remise, Josepha Raphard, Rebekka Deubner, Marie-Therese Haustein and Katya Riabinkina

Understanding their own bodies is the first thing they do. The subject is readily available. Photographing themselves, reflected in the mirror, they consider what their models might offer them. A pose. They then observe the distance that is comfortable to them, and to others, between the camera and the subject. They define a space of consent. A physical space, confined between walls or scattered in the landscape - as well as a mental space, which we call trust.

According to Edward T. Hall (1963), intimate distance between two people is six to eighteen inches (about 40 centimetres). It occurs in the smallest range of proximity, after public distance, social distance, and personal distance. Benedict Brink, Marie Déhé and Clare Shilland interpret this intimate space through photographs operating from a more subjective science of feeling. The feeling, among other things, is of tenderness towards their bodies and projected also onto the bodies of other women; their sisters, friends, daughters.

Each image encompasses a single body, or a piece of it. With little formality, they show chins, bellies, breasts, intertwining silent conversations. The collapsed face of a statue cracking under pressure; the bare navel exposed by the flesh that stretches in a landscape of flowing skin; the fleeting look, released, like branches in nature. The photographs are brought together to overcome the loneliness of their frames. Benedict, Marie, Clare - through discovering their affinities and building intimacy with their subjects - have considered all these bodies, close.

Anne Bourrassé
Translation by Leah Buhain

Benedict, Marie and Clare wish to thank:

Measure the Feeling, October 6th–22nd, Oddity, Paris
27 rue Notre Dame de Nazareth, 75003 Paris.

Books and limited edition litho posters available online - Oddity Store

Benedict Brink is a photographer and film maker who has lived and worked between New York and London for the past 10 years.
Working within the fashion Industry, she has contributed to editions such as Purple Magazine, Dazed and Confused, Re-Edition, Document Journal and the New York Times.
Outside of her work in fashion she has participated in exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, Melbourne, London and Copenhagen.
A book of her recent work with Clare Shilland, Been On My Own for Long Enough (Space Books) is available through Antenne Books.
Editions of previous sold out exhibition catalogues such as The Spring Cleaning (Ditto Press) and This is a Song (Heavy Time Books) are occasionally available on platforms such as Idea Books.
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Clare Shilland is a photographer. She lives and works in London.
Her work has been published in BEAT, i-D, W and More or Less magazines, and she has worked with brands; Aries, Marni and GANNI. She has exhibited in London, New York and Copenhagen. Her previous books include I’ve Been On My Own For Long Enough, made with Benedict Brink, Project Based Learning- a project with the City of Islington Sixth Form students and Aries/Hillier Bartley, and Kasper- a collaboration with her friend Kasper, Eliza Conlon and Studio Frith.
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Marie Déhé is a photographer, she lives and works in Val d’Oise, France.
Her latest book Distant intimacy has been published by Art Paper Editions in 2022. Her next book Correspondance will be released in November 2022.
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Since she started writing in 2014, Haydée Touitou developed her practice in fiction and poetry by contributing to multiple publications. Defining her writing as dumb poetry, she views literature as amusingly incoherent. Her third collection of poems, Still Life Poems will be published in a bilingual edition in 2023.
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Hella Keck is an artist and set designer based in London.
With an eye for detail and an affinity to texture, Hella’s work reflects on observations of our everyday landscape and balances between a refined and explorative use of materials.
Hella graduated with a degree in sculpture from the University of Brighton and is represented internationally by Webber.