“When an idea takes shape, could the risk represented by it alone awaken in one a different connection with what we commonly call reality?” – Anne Dufourmantelle (2019) In Praise of Risk

Dark Moves is a series of cameraless images that rethinks the nature of photographic representation. By rejecting the perspectival optical mediation, these images invite us to contemplate photography not as a capture through a lens, but as a creation of its own. In this context, a photograph without a camera is not the representation of the object but is the object itself.

The work proposes an internal work, inside the darkroom where blindness manifests itself, the possibilities of uncertainty and memory resurface through touch. Menchelli works in complete darkness using photographic paper as a support and tool to make the image, which she later mounts on stainless steel structures that are folded following the exact folds of each image. The result is photographic works that occupy space in a three-dimensional way, challenging the conventional idea of photography as a two-dimensional medium. Dark Moves is characterized by its focus on the intersection between the body, light, and the photographic image, exploring new expressive possibilities within the medium; and generating an immersive space for the viewer.

This series was presented at The Douglas F. Cooley Gallery, at Reed College, and Arroniz Galería, Mexico City