PENUMBRA Members Gallery | Victoria Manning
Scarcely a leaf or limb was left
Scarcely a leaf or limb was left is a series of wet-plate collodion opalotypes (milk glass positives) inspired by the Battle of Gettysburg, the phantom limb phenomena and the work of Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell. It was Mitchell who coined the term phantom limb to describe the "sensory ghosts" soldiers would often experience after amputations - the feeling that the missing limb was still present, active, and receptive to sensation. For the series, I photographed locations where there were significant casualties and where amputations were known to have occurred, in order to explore the ideas of how, where and when phantom limbs come into being - on the battlefield, in the field hospital, at the moment of wounding, amputation, or during recovery.
In printing wet-plate collodion opalotypes, I used an antiquated photographic process that was contemporary to the Civil War era, but without attempting to reproduce historic photographs. The translucency of the opalotype seemed an effective way to evoke the spectral nature and absent/present duality of the phantom limb phenomenon. In photographing mostly landscape views, I sought to displace the opalotype's traditional usage in portraiture and also capture the descriptive language of amputations, which borrows heavily from the terms for trees - limb, branch, stump, and more.
Gettysburg is often considered to be the most 'haunted' battlefield, but regardless of whether one believes or denies the existence of ghosts, we do know that phantoms were made on that battlefield.
Artist Bio
Victoria Manning received her BFA in Photography from the School of Visual Arts and currently resides in Brooklyn, NY. Her practice explores connections between history, science, and literature through the use of photography, sculpture, needlework, and other mediums. Her most recent projects include Gaslight a series of chemigrams inspired by the chemical links between World War I gas masks and photography, and Revariantes, a group of portraits exploring doubling, heautoscopy, and hawthorn folklore. Some of her past series have included investigations into the history of neurology and hysteria in Reposantes; early photography in Wedgwood; the puzzling anagrammatic nomenclature of a 19th century naturalist in Elfortiana; and the phantom limb phenomena in Scarcely a leaf or limb was left. She has been included in numerous group exhibitions, a solo exhibition of her project Greetings from Oil Country was held in Olean, NY, and her photographs are in several private collections.
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