Hope
This series, pulled from the tens of thousands of images I shot in Japan, looks at the darker side of hope. It looks at the longings, vague or acute, that define our lives.
Hope is usually a good thing, instilling faith that our sufferings will end, and we will get the things that we want. It is an illusion from which reality grows, and without it, life would be unendurable. But the brighter the light, the darker the shadow it creates, and hope is no different.
Hope can ruin your life. It can keep you waiting for something that is not going to happen, paralyzed while your days become years. And, less romantically, it can turn every experience into a disappointment, never quite as good as you’d hoped. Pursuing unattainable ideals may be noble, but it won’t make you very happy.
Artist Statement
I seldom know what I am doing as I do it.
There’s a line from a William S. Burroughs piece I like. I mention it when people ask what I’m working on. It goes something like:
“I am a secret agent and I don’t know who I am working for. I take my instructions from street signs, advertisements and snippets of conversation I pull out of the air like a hungry vulture tearing meat…”
I know that, in the end, it will be a body of photographs. But how many photos, how they will fit together, the story or feeling they will carry…. I never know these things as I’m working. I just photograph whatever interests me. Some of it will be useful later, most won’t. I think of it as being a little like riding a train facing backwards; things only become clear when they’re far away.
This is a work in progress. Right now, I imagine the finished piece tying together photos shot over the last ten years into a loose narrative about wandering. About going into the desert not really sure what I’m looking for, but believing that is there. And that somehow, once I’ve found whatever it is, I will be different. Whole.
But since I don’t know what or where it is, I just keep looking.
Frank Miller
2008