The second extract from the Processing newspaper, ahead of the opening of the exhibition on Thursday, is the conclusion to my interview with photographer Kevin Casey:
JW: A few months back we discussed that when shooting the project, you observed that many patients in these technologically advanced chambers were middle age men who were subjected to frequent saturation diving years before the risks were fully understood. Do you consider ‘Chamber’ as representing the overlapping of these different eras?
KC: I think from a safety aspect alone the process seems to have developed. The contact that I have had with patients, mainly middle-aged men who use the chambers (from a commercial diving perspective) is evident for a few reasons. Firstly it’s useful as an “in” point to access some locations, units and other patients. My dad introduced me to contacts who were naturally his peers and in his age group. Secondly, as you mentioned, when these divers began in the 70’s and 80’s, there didn’t seemed to be a strict form, at least in Africa and the Middle East, of regulation for the time that they could be subjected to working under heavy pressure. For these divers the more time you spent in ‘Sat’ the greater financial reward. From a documentary perspective, it is interesting to note that patients who use these facilities have reached a meeting point in eras. From what I can gather and have been told the technology has not changed that drastically over the years. What I find interesting is that the functionality of the chamber has evolved. You can now find dental patients and burns victims being treated in the chamber.
JW: What narratives are you interested in creating with ‘Chamber’?
KC: I initially shot a video for my Masters in a chamber in the Wirral, Merseyside. The video could best be described as a documentary with a performance element – more of a dramatisation in the editing than the actual content. I thought that I could get deeper into the subject matter and people involved. The video edits played to the strength of a film with quick edits and increased sound and audio. However I thought it would be more interesting to slow the process down to enable the viewer to invest time in each image, which, of course, is the photograph’s greatest strength. My criteria for selecting images is ever changing as this is still a work in progress. There have been two separate edits so far. The first concentrates on the experience of the staff and patients in the facilities and their working conditions and daily routines. This could be seen as entering the realm of a medical case study, something that I feel would not be appropriate for a gallery aesthetic. The second edits have been looser and left open to the viewers’ interpretation. I think that this encourages people to investigate or try and piece together their own narrative which has generated different reactions from the mundane to the sinister.
