Risograph printed in gold, blue and brown
8″ x 5″ x .25″
2021
Ghost Light Theaters is a book in three parts. Each booklet in the set creates a narrative, cinematic experience like a silent film. Broadly, the books triangulate between photography, film and theater—three mysterious and evocative dark spaces where, paradoxically, stories are captured and retold through light. The title of the work comes from the theatrical term ghost light. A ghost light is a single bulb left illuminated near center stage when a theater is unoccupied and would otherwise be completely dark. Superstition holds that a ghost light provides opportunity for the resident ghosts of the theater to perform onstage when everyone else has left for the night. Each booklet is built around a single vernacular photograph that appears repeatedly in various forms or transformations across the pages. Other imagery includes photographs of Art Deco architectural motifs made from theater models I designed and fabricated, like the miniature theater included with the special edition.
– Rachel Phillips, Pacifica, CA