Luminous Fragments forms part of a broader research project that explores the photographic representation of marble and the temporal and material relationship between this magnificent, yet delicate stone, and the humble photographic print. This work considers what happens when the camera encounters marble’s luminous surface, and what, if anything, the photograph can tell us about the colour and materiality of marble, including the role it has it played in shaping a perception of marble as ‘white’. Rachel Cusk writes of the supposed whiteness of marble as the archetype of antiquity and symbolic of immortality “embodying a resistance to the new” (24:2002). Like André Bazin, who described the photograph’s relationship to time in terms of mummification and embalmment (1945), Cusk compares marble to photographs in their endeavour to “preserve the moment” and “defeat death” (24).
Image Credit: Emma Croman. Install view from Necrology exhibition (2025)
Digital print on metalic photo rag. Image Credit: Emma Croman. Installation view from Necrology exhibition (2025)
Digital print on cotton photo rag. Image Credit: Emma Croman. Installation view from Necrology exhibition (2025)
