A framed picture of a bird at its center hangs on the wall at an angle with one side jutting out towards the viewer. Behind the picture frame is another image of two hands. As the viewer moves towards the side, the hands shift in space as though it is moving forward but one quickly realizes it is a reflection on a mirror. I was interested in changing the way the viewer engages with an image on a wall and turning the experience into a more physical one. There is something quite predatory about photography. As Susan Sontag says "To photograph people is to violate them, by seeing them as they never see themselves, by having knowledge of them they can never have, it turns people into objects that can be symbolically possessed." One may read the hands as that of a predator as the gesture suggests, taking aim at the bird. Or as the title suggests, it may be that of the seer. Photography is about sight but there is always a blind spot, outside and behind the picture.

Copyright 2012, Akihiko Miyoshi // miyos "at" reed "dot" edu