Sarah Edwards: Solitude, Spaces, and Her

A Parallel Planets piece by Unknown

Parallel Planets presents Sarah Edwards

in Solitude, Spaces, and Her

Story by Anna Samarita and Interview by Erin Emocling

Mentioned: hidden, human emotions, an over-sized night shirt, and Florence

* * *

The pavement had been littered with cats.

There were black cats, white cats, calico cats and orange tabbies, cats that were lying down and licking themselves, cats that were stretching, fat cats whose tummies were exposed to the moonlight and the chill of the night, and cats with eyes that pierce through the flimsy cardigan I was wearing.

The parking lot was lit by a lone streetlamp at a corner slightly obscured by a nearby tree. There was no one around; no one was needed to guard the inactive ATMs. Only the cats abound. Perhaps they come at a set hour of set darkness, with earnest ennui, to reclaim the space they've so graciously lent to the humans during daytime.

This scene with the cats, I felt, could have only been conceived by Haruki Murakami. Except that it was there, right in front of me, on that night that was anything but a conception of that eccentric Japanese man. I searched for my companion and the streets of Ortigas reestablished itself in my reality. The honking of cars and the roar of their engines replaced what was silence but a moment ago. A burst of garish orange attacked the cool, subdued tones of that scene. It was as if the cats had existed as I made that one step, only to be sucked into the vortex from which they came as I turned away.

photo by Sarah Edwards

photo by Sarah Edwards

Sarah Edwards is no cat; she's a girl, a "negative soul," an "artist in decline." She could be a raccoon. (At least two of her photos show her seemingly caught off-guard with her wide, kohl-rimmed eyes, shoulders tense, poised to intimidate lingering predators.) As I landed on her space on the Internet, I thought: Have I collided with this girl before?

Solitude is a dominant theme in her photographs. The word "isolated" itself came from her own fingers. How else to best depict this inescapable condition of being human? That is of the solitude of being “a sovereign” “amidst a universe of objects,” to borrow from Madame de Beauvoir; to be a “fish in the stream,” to borrow from Virginia Woolf.

“The nameless girl that wanders around in an isolated world. She searches for some other living soul and doesn’t like loud noises. Because she lives in my photographs,” Sarah says when asked about her alter-ego. Ah, perfect, I thought to myself. I realized then why I was oddly drawn to her photographs, despite the floating sense of self-indulgence that surrounds any endeavor that contains a reproduction of one’s image: She could be a protagonist from a Murakami novel.

 Various exits or entrances are present: mirrors, windows. She seems to find great kinship with impersonal things: curtains, a chair, a clock; a pillow; tree trunks and branches that could be arteries or veins. Sarah’s photos, for all that they inspire, is brought to reality by being devoid of color, a choice that mirrors that of the filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky towards the use of color in his films. “Black and white just puts it the way it is, good or bad, it’s laid bare, raw, with nothing to distract you,” she says.

It was unsettling to go through her oeuvre. To have to view this willowy, bird-like girl in various degrees of completeness and nakedness — her limbs sometimes stretching, sometimes folded at odd angles — was to be reminded that this fragile, vulnerable thing once existed in me and will no doubt show herself again at some point in the future. Fret not, nameless girl! There are, after all, all these open doors.

photo by Sarah Edwards

photo by Sarah Edwards

This piece is contributed by Anna Samarita. Below is an interview with Sarah Edwards by Erin Emocling.

* * *

Parallel Planets: Hi, Sarah! How are you? What were you doing before this interview?

Sarah Edwards: "Hello, I’m good, thank you for asking. I was actually just looking outside my window, today is a very misty, foggy day. Like it is all set for an Alfred Hitchcock movie to unfold."

Parallel Planets: Tell something about Sarah Edwards as a film photographer and before you became one.

Sarah Edwards: "I am just a girl that lives a lot in her own mind. I have always been very observant of my surroundings and since I was little I’ve had a need to express myself in some artistic way, always. As a little girl always painting. I’m also very restless."

Parallel Planets: When/How did your inclination with film photography begin?

Sarah Edwards: "I’ve always been fascinated by photography and I dabbled in digital photography first. But once I bought a Diana F+ camera, my first film camera, I just knew there was something about film that I connect with, something wonderful that I need to explore. And when I learned to develop myself, there was no looking back."

Parallel Planets: What defines your artistic style? What are your “trademarks”?

Sarah Edwards: "My photographs are guided by the thoughts in my head. I use self portraits and nature to portray fragility and vulnerability, maybe fears, basically very human emotions that most of us keep hidden. I don’t use any other person expect myself to model in my photos, it is just me as the model and nature. I guess these are my trademarks."

photo by Sarah Edwards

photo by Sarah Edwards

Parallel Planets: What influences your work? Who inspires you?

Sarah Edwards: "Life inspires me a lot. No better teacher that life I think. I don’t think there’s a specific person that inspires me but I often come across works of art that take my breath away."

Parallel Planets: Why do you prefer shooting in black and white? Enlighten us.

Sarah Edwards: "Mainly because without the color I feel there’s no distraction, nothing that takes away from what is in the photograph. I like color and might experiment with it soon but for my work so far I feel black and white just puts it the way it is, good or bad, it’s laid bare, raw, with nothing to distract you."

Parallel Planets: It’s the eternal question for analogue lovers—why do you choose film over digital?

Sarah Edwards: "I’ll give you a cliché answer, it’s the look of film. It’s true, for me the whole process from composing the picture to being in the darkroom developing the negative. Nothing beats it. I’m a very restless person as I’ve mentioned, so working actually with film, chemicals with developing gives my creativity the artistic satisfaction it craves."

Parallel Planets: You recently had your first solo show in Montreal. How did it go? Can you share us some of the photos that were included in the exhibit?

Sarah Edwards: "It’s being held here for the month of January,2014. It’s going very well. I’m just so excited and happy to show my work! Of course, yes half the photos I have sent your way are included in my exhibit."

photo by Sarah Edwards

photo by Sarah Edwards

Parallel Planets: What is your mantra in life?

Sarah Edwards: "Very simple, to be free and make wise choices."

Parallel Planets: Aside from film photography, what other creative pursuits are you interested in? Tell us more about the other side of Sarah Edwards.

Sarah Edwards: "Creatively film photography pretty much dominates. I like to do the best I can with only one thing at a time, so in the creative department I concentrate on my love for  film photography."

Parallel Planets: Mention three of your favorite things in the world.

Sarah Edwards: "If we are talking just material things then, my main camera Yashica Mat 124G, a red Ipod touch 5 given to me by someone special, my over-sized night shirt."

Parallel Planets: Do you have any weird habits? Strange desires? Unlikely fetishes? Surprise us.

Sarah Edwards: "Well I’ll tell you one ;) I sometimes cut nail on my right hand index finger shorter than rest of the nails on other fingers."

Parallel Planets: What project(s) are you currently working on?

Sarah Edwards: "There is a series I’m dying to do, I have the whole thing in my head, just waiting for the right circumstances with natural light and some other things."

photo by Sarah Edwards

photo by Sarah Edwards

Parallel Planets: In this planet that we're thriving in—

What is your power animal?

"I would say, raccoon. They observe and very good at adapting according to their surroundings and also very intelligent."

Who is your alternate ego?

"The nameless girl that wanders around in an isolated world. She searches for some other living soul and doesn’t like loud noises. Because she lives in my photographs."

Parallel Planets: In an alternate universe where film photography does not exist—

What would your name be?

"Florence. Because when I was little I wanted to be a painter and my name would be Florence, like the artistic city of Florence."

What would you be doing instead? Why?

"Painter. Because as a child I used to paint a lot."

More from Sarah Edwards

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