Source book published on the occasion of the exhibition Margaret Salmon at Witte de With, 20 May to 19 August 2007.
Margaret Salmon (1975, New York, USA) creates stylized portraits that weave together poetry and documentary. Focusing on individual characters in their everyday habitats, her slow-moving films capture the minutiae of daily life, infusing them with a certain grandeur. Salmon portrays the common struggle of ordinary people, constructing documents that represent characters in a social context. Her position is never aggressive nor intrusive, but balances intimacy with respectful distance, creating laconic yet moving works that are at once sober and lyrical, filled with a fragile sense of humanity.