Death in the afternoon

"This on-going series explores photography's relationship with death. The pictures are a collection of hazy moments set within the environment of the bed: a locale in which notions of life and death are implicit.
The bed is also a space in which a metaphysical departure from reality frequently takes place. During sleep one's mind can enter dreams, and the foggy blur between sleep and consciousness can be a liminal space in which we drift.

Sexual experiences in the bed can also provide a similar liminal departure, or euphoria, and the atmosphere of this series strives to describe such a dream-like state. The pictures could be considered abstractions of the french idea la petite mort (the little death) - a momentary transcendence after orgasm. While the orgasm as an act is inherently connected with the creation of life, it also holds a resonance in terms of a spiritual release, or jouissance ("bliss", for the want of a more accurate translation).

Sigmund Freud explained jouissance as an experience "close to death", while Roland Barthes described jouissance, in his seminal work The Pleasure of the Text , as the ultimate goal of "writerly" literature. The literary objects depicted in this series are a reference to this ideal. Dispersed throughout the work are photographs of animals culturally symbolic of life and death (perhaps themselves dead, perhaps alive), reclining figures, open literary texts, and views out of the bedroom (perhaps looking out to another liminal space or reality)."

+ More of Guy Archard's delightful work here.