What Are We Looking at?

Anstett's minimalist approach to her subjects seems to catch them at the mysterious moment of transitioning to sleep from wakefulness, called hypnagogia. Something is revealed about the individuality of these people even though there is no eye contact or apparent awareness of the intermediary, the photographer, who is offering this intrusive access to the viewer.

As if in a meditative trance, the subjects seem to almost be floating in ungrounded space.

How Can the Images Be Interpreted?

Viewing these images feels like an invasion of private space, a feeling reinforced by the apparent nudity of the women. There is a reminder of sitting across from strangers on an early morning commuter train when they have fallen asleep and are so relaxed that the face they wear for public consumption seems to have slipped off entirely to reveal instead a hidden defenselessness, reserved for only the very few who see them sleeping. Their startled awakening usually reveals that tired commuters who succumb to sleep do not freely give out such defenselessness. A sudden, almost confrontational, self-composing while staring at those who might have glimpsed them deprived of their public persona is a frequent reaction to waking under such circumstances. The potential for this discomfort is an effective element in these images and asks the question what it means “to portray.” How do we truly read another, in actuality or in photographs? What if they don't wake up and we just think they are pulled into initial states of sleep?

FIGURE 25.2 Emme. © Chai Anstett

How Can the Viewpoint from the Above Approach Inform the Experience of the Images?

We already know that these subjects are not floating above us, because of the gravitational evidence of their hair. While it is not falling forward, there is an ambiguity to whether it is hanging down or lying flat, which would put us above the women. Because of the equally ambiguous figure-ground relationship, the subjects could be sitting or lying down.

If they are lying down and photographed in this clinical way, not asleep on a bed or a couch, the surface must be something else and could easily become suggestive of a mortuary table. If that were the case, choosing this viewpoint only exaggerates the discomfort for the viewer. Are we there to identify someone or are we being shown a photo for this same purpose? There is no evidence of a V-shaped incision. Is an autopsy about to be performed? And here Anstett leads her viewers to a place of compassion for these strangers. Their vulnerability is that they are young. They are at an increased risk of being victimized because of their age and because they are women. There is also the likelihood that they would be paid less for the same job as their male counterparts. The viewer is led to understand that these women could be killed or their souls destroyed, their self-worth demolished, experience-by-experience (Figure 25.1).

How Can the Element of Viewpoint Be Further Expanded upon?

We know from descriptions of near-death experiences that many patients have reported looking upon themselves, their corporeal form, from above as if floating over themselves. If we go there, then we become the women and in that moment may realize that if one is diminished we are all diminished. Think of the epidemic of rapes across so many college campuses. Our inaction and silence makes us complicit in subtle and profound ways that ultimately diminish us all and bind us even closer to these images. In this sense the viewer can be implicated in the silent protest these women strongly convey (Figure 25.2).

Anstett continued with her portraits in our subsequent color seminar class. What has been said can still inform these images, though the color changes several things. The lighting is darker and although more somber, is also less clinical. The strobes get caught on the eyelids and look like white orbs. Though still closed, they lend the eyes a weird presence; white pupils instead of black ones. Since they are slightly higher than where they should be, this makes it look like the eyes are rolling back into the skull, placing the eyeball where it should not be.

The various customs of closing the eyes of those who have died, of weighing down the eyelids with coins or stones can be traced back to the fear of the death stare, to a deep sense of respect for those who once saw and no longer do, and, I suspect, to the finality that dead eyes convey. After all we can't pretend they are asleep, and the inclination for most of us would be that they want the dead person to be at peace.

FIGURE 25.3 Mia. © Chai Anstett

Another element is the “black darkness,” in this image and in the subsequent image, which also reads as “black on black:” the dismissal of black lives whose loss is somehow more expected than say, “white on white.” In fact, I don't remember that term—”white on white” ever being used. Of course no skin color is ever truly black, just as no skin color is ever truly white. This is a matter of mere gradation. Again, the idiom of “black on black” violence may be another way for Anstett to quietly insist on everyone's culpability (Figure 25.3).

IV.XX.LVII—04.20.57. A date. What is the significance? April 20th has some notoriety for being the international pot day. Fifty-seven, even 1957, has as far as I know nothing to do with that. Notably, the Mayflower II, a replica of the famed ship that ferried the first pilgrims across the sea, was launched on that date in Brixton, England to start her fifty-five day journey to Plymouth, Massachusetts. I looked that up on the Internet. Somehow, I suspect the date has nothing to do with either event. It may represent the birthdate of someone special and it may not. We all have our stuff (Figure 25.4).

But it is a clue. In the absence of all else, we want to cling to it. This offers one way to think of the person as someone who has a date that is so important to her that she carries it with her wherever she goes. The point for the audience may simply be not to obsess over that date, but rather those that matter to each of us, visible or not. It is our own stuff that matters. When we realize that, and honor it in whatever way feels best to us, we take care of ourselves. This is the prerequisite for our being able to take care of others.

Conclusion

We might not consciously think about this when initially considering this work. Yet, as the images get stored in our memory bank and like everything else we know and have learned, and have experienced individually and collectively, it will continue to float around the periphery of our consciousness, until we ourselves wake up and start to take collective responsibility for each other. Anstett does this with nuance and, in fact, insists quite forcefully without ever insisting at all. This then is an example of peaceful protest through her peaceful images.

FIGURE 25.4 Rita. © Chai Anstett