Miriam Sampaio Trauma Fragment Series #2

Artist talk

Is it possible to capture ghosts?

We are not referring to those ethereal beings that fill fantastic tales. Neither are we referring to any New Age mysticisms. If we did, we would condemn Miriam Sampaio’s work to the carny sideshow-like spectacle of the Cottingley fairies or to the mere fascination that humans always feel towards the morbid and the spectacular.

In her hands, cameras, whether film or photographic, are not used to capture images but become stepping-stones for the trapping of the ghosts. Focusing her aided eye toward ruins, forgotten corners of graveyards, wrecked homes, silenced documents, bodies in pain, and abandoned archives, Miriam Sampaio invokes the ghosts.