This project is a memorial piece to Stephen G. Schwarz, a NYC firefighter and first responder who passed away in 2010 due to complications from residual damage incurred on 9.11.2001.
For six years Stephen and Karin lived on a bucolic farm in Upstate New York until Stephen’s untimely death in 2010 at the age of 49 caused by illnesses related to his heroism working inside the collapsed buildings.
The farm in Sullivan County NY where Giusti and Schwarz lived as partners is represented here in a full holographic loop created by standing on a chart used to map a full 360 degree panorama of the landscape, photographed over a six- year period.
Giusti started photographing the farm shortly before Stephen’s death and continued after he passed away. She started with her feet working her way up the trees and sky and then down to the ground again. She stitched together the photographs resulting in a journal of sorts, realizing that there were connections where her body collided with the landscape and then seemed to disappear.
The photos were then sutured to create a “strings of time”, printed on backlight material and used to construct 16, 20 foot tall by 3 ft. wide, sentinel-like columns, lit from within.
Highlighting a transformative absence, the installation has no human references except the shadow of the artist and a sound-track of the sounds of nature, song birds and Schwarz chopping wood.
They are seen here as light pillars at Smack Mellon Gallery, Brooklyn, NY.
Smack Mellon Gallery, Brooklyn (NY), 2015
My physical presence seems to implode upon itself and float like a craft, my hair turning to vapors
Karin Giusti about Three Seasons
