Working (with) the Dead: Agency and its Absence in the Use of the Found Image

The making of meaning – or the telling of a story – in visual art practice of-ten involves an elaborate performance of the space between multiple sites, such as the viewer, the image/object, and the maker. Likewise a conventional understanding of collaborative practice is one in which a relationship between multiple sites of agency is performed within agreed upon boundaries, whether they be contextual, conceptual or material. This performative and collaborative space becomes interestingly problematic when one site is much less active than the other – when one is in fact dead. With this, the relationship between now and then becomes relevant to the discussion, as the making of meaning becomes a collaborative practice of memory.