Viviana Bonura is Born from salt

The winner of this year’s Saltzman Prize has recently been announced, photographer Keisha Scarville, whose photographs explore themes of cultural identity, transformation, and loss. Born to immigrant parents from Guyana in the USA, Scarville has addressed the issue of immigration in her series Passport (2012-2016), in which she manipulates dozens of nearly identical black and white passport photos of her father, delving into the concept of identity. This is one example that validates her award. The Saltzman Prize indeed recognizes the value of voices that provide new perspectives to the community, both technically and thematically. An example that underscores her research and language is the artist book published by Scarville last year, titled Lick of tongue, rub of finger, on soft wound. Let’s find out more.

Lick of tongue, rub of finger, on soft wound

Archive images, black and white photographs, landscapes, collages, personal texts, and film frames. All of this is encapsulated in Keisha Scarville’s artist book. A project that fully reflects her long research along migration routes between the Caribbean and America. Revisiting multiple times the same journey undertaken by her parents even before her birth, Scarville explores the transformation of identity from personal to collective with the aim of generating and spreading an alternative narrative of the black diaspora. Opposing the conventional and linear one. This book encapsulates part of the projects that the photographer has carried out over twenty years, becoming emblematic of her research and artistic work.

It all begins in 2001 when Scarville returns to Guyana with her mother, «I used this trip as an opportunity to actively observe how the landscape can shape our identities, documenting everything with my camera,» she explains in an interview with Americansuburbx. With Lick of tongue, rub of finger, on soft wound Scarville seeks her belonging, initially looking at the territorial and landscape differences and similarities between America and Guyana and then seeking a language that could translate the power of the landscape into words.