Blind Spot by Julie van der Vaart

“Whether a photo was taken yesterday or two years ago is immaterial. Inspired by theories of non-linear time, astrophysics and quantum mechanics, Julie van der Vaart has begun experimenting in the darkroom. [...] A photo is prosaically a record of the past, but now it remains eternally afloat in imaginary time.”Merel Bem

‘Blind Spot’ by artist Julie van der Vaart is a poetic exploration of the concepts of imaginary time and deep time. Photographs of the human body, caves and water(falls) are choreographed into disorientating sequences to reveal correlations between images. Created over six years, each series of work in the book contributes to the artist’s ongoing attempts to represent through the photographic image the discrepancies between imaginary time and experienced linear time.

“From an early age I had a fascination for space and time. As a child, I tried to imagine the size of the universe. I imagined space in front of me but I also felt myself as a physical presence in that space: it stretched out in my head and I lost myself in the infinite depth. I also had similar experiences with time, that it was stretchable, movable and not fixed at all.”

The title of the book refers to the blind spot where the optic nerve connects to the retina and no light-sensitive cells are present. The brain fills in the empty space based on the information surrounding the blind spot. The title acts as a metaphor for the potential divergence—the trick of the mind—between what we see and experience, and what is real.