The Belief in a Conception of Supernatural Causality

Bonnell, Sian (2013) The Belief in a Conception of Supernatural Causality. Photoworks, Brighton. (Submitted)

Abstract / Summary

This publication features a new body of work made whilst undertaking the Photoworks Senior Research Fellowship at the British School at Rome April - June 2011. This output was contingent upon the completion of a complex and extensive period of studio practice resulting in a thorough analysis of my working methods to date over a 30 year period. The conclusion of this analysis is that my practice has made a significant contribution to knowledge, utilizing a sculptural methodology of assemblage and proving that photography is in fact a sculptural tool. The blog, carried out whilst undertaking the fellowship in Rome utilizes photography, writing, fiction and performance which was an on-line assemblage, a body of work in its own right, which was accessed globally. The exhibition of 10 self-portrait images, exhibited at the end of the fellowship in the Sainsbury Gallery, at the British School at Rome was a fraction of the whole body of work made (amounting to over 300 edited images) exploring the gestures of saints and holy personages depicted in religious painting from thirteenth to twentieth century, along with a still life study of objects with superstitious significance and the discovery and documentation of an archive of charms and amulets belonging to the first Director of the British School at Rome. The study and re-performing of religious gesture which were recorded and repeated as a means to understand the performative aspects of Catholicism and the visual language of religious behavior. This has led to the commencement of a continuing study on superstition and fear in European culture and beyond, as well as the history and practices of ancient superstitions and the ways they have transmuted to global contemporary fears. The forthcoming monograph will feature much more of the new work produced with written analyses of the research to date.

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