My exhibition LightHouse, was made while on residency at Pioneer Works. I was inspired by the history and exhibition site of the 19th century military housing at Nolan Park, on Governors Island, New York. The house, my exhibition space, was heavy with history visible through layers of peeling paint and energetically palpable when inside. I began searching for a deeper connection, to know who had lived in this place, and as I grew frustrated with my research, I discovered an unclassified CIA document, The Stargate Project. This document details and teaches a form of psychic Remote Viewing. Fascination with this pseudo-science spurred me to apply Remote Viewing techniques to the house by including a psychic hired by Pioneer Works, Paula Roberts. The resulting psychic anthropological narratives mixed “fact” and fiction and spurred the one of a kind chemical darkroom images made in response. Here we see combines of string divination, chemigrams and mirroring body prints, made by pressing my developer covered body directly onto fiber-based photographic paper.
"The traditional photographic process—using a camera and producing prints from negatives—captures images of the material world. Kenyon forgoes the camera and generates her prints by (in simplest terms) applying objects (including her body) and chemical developer directly to photo paper, then manipulating these materials, however she does it, giving us unique recordings that are not reproducible. Without the camera, something seemingly non-material manifests. Kenyon’s process acts as a sort of photographic Ouija board. Not exactly a portal, but a lens the other side presses itself up against. Things are not represented; things are revealed."
Exhibition at Pioneer Works on Governors Island
Unique chemical darkroom prints on Fiber-based Silver Gelatin paper, various sizes