imAGE

In Edinburgh the whole world seems to be on the move. At Forest Fringe, tucked away in a room in a corner where brown paper covers the windows in the door, that world stops. Alone, I’ve entered that room.

Ellie Stamp sits behind a long white desk. Opposite her, another chair, for me. Face up on the table are four photographs of a woman, Augustine, in a mental hospital in 1878. Photographs of a woman diagnosed with hysteria, photographed by a man, to be studied by men.

This is a work-in-progress, she says. She has been in this room for five days, and this is what has happened. And now, she says, close your eyes, and tell me about a photograph you’ve taken. A photograph without you in it.

She takes my words, and weaves a song and a story of a girl who is me, but who isn’t me, and a girl called Augustine who was photographed in a mental hospital in 1878. And another story altogether that’s maybe Stamp’s, but maybe isn’t.

And I think what I’ve described is innocuous: it’s just a sunset, it’s just a cityscape, it’s just a camera phone. But what Stamp pulls out in imAGE is that we carry everything with us. Every choice we make is connected. A photograph might be a moment, but it’s a moment planned. A moment that follows everything that came before it.

The story ends, the song ends, and I look into Stamp's eyes and say thank you. And I begin to cry.

Ellie Stamp: imAGE, Residency, Cutting Room, 17-21 August