Bianca Chapman on Photography

Ace E725 Correspondent Bianca Chapman files a moving meditative fusion of word and image:

the rain exploding
in the air is love
the grass excreting her
green waz is love
and stones remembering
past steps is love,
but you, you are too young
for love
and i too old.

–from Ballad by Sonia Sanchez

Perhaps love is the energy transferred between the real and the abstract; the physics of time and the memory of touch. In that case, the illumination of the pregnant figure is the embodiment of capturing a moment of time overpowered by touch, an examination of the beginning of life and the physical universe holding it all. In The Sweet Breath of Life, a collaboration of photographic images by Kamoinge Inc. and poetry by Ntozake Shange, the energy finds a place to rest in the magnetic footsteps of a pregnant woman dancing on the roof of an urban building. There is an installation of the natural, as rain dances on and off her skin magically in a still photograph. Time passes with the dance of steady raindrops. The world around her moves with her. There is asymmetrical energy given by her urban background as parts of the building seem to stab at her exuberant nude body, covered only by her frail hands.


“forgive me if I smile
young heiress of a naked dream
you are so young
and i too old to learn to love.” –from Ballad by Sonia Sanchez

In the collection, Inner Light, we find the symmetrical energy of a pregnant figure enclosed in a recreation of the ovule of a flower, the flower budding within the flower. The lines constructed create a peaceful tension as parts of her body venture outside of the structure. Half of her body rests in the warm shadow of itself as her hands provide the only other coverage. The world around her cradles her, as she cradles her own. Time halts, a victim of her steady force, her steady heartbeat, and the energy within her. There is the energy of love between these two figures, a common thread of time blossoming within and the magnificent physical window from which it will enter.