Untitled 1992

Curator: This striking black and white photograph, simply titled "Untitled," was created in 1992 by Thomas Roma. The subjects appear to be in a church setting, perhaps even moments before a wedding. It has a rather somber feeling. What is your initial take? Editor: It feels immediate, almost unsettlingly intimate. You're right, the somber tone is there, even with the crisp detail afforded by the monochrome format. The textures draw me in--the coarse wood of the pew contrasting with the delicate lace of the wedding dress. It prompts questions about labor. How were these surfaces fashioned, by whom? What kind of hands created these contrasting materials? Curator: That's a very compelling angle, viewing the work through the lens of its materiality and production. From an iconographic perspective, the church setting itself is heavily laden with symbolic weight – a space of promises, commitments, but also, perhaps, anxieties and the weight of tradition, particularly for the bride, whose gaze is directed downwards. Editor: The setting certainly imposes itself upon the subjects. And those pews – their seriality, their rigid formation... almost a factory assembly line applied to spiritual practice. They look incredibly solid; were these handmade, mass produced, or some strange intermediate? And, is the starkness intentional, drawing our eyes toward these individuals against a minimalist, mass-produced, or crafted background? Curator: It's interesting that you see it as minimalist. I see a lot of symbolic depth, both in the spatial arrangement of the figures and the implied narrative tension. The way the groom looms, for example—his physical size contrasting with the bride’s smaller, almost self-effacing posture. He represents expectation and dominance and appears to be looking slightly down his nose in judgment; his symbolic place is already firm within the church and the wider context of marriage. Editor: Agreed. The physical dominance, the scale – undeniable! Yet that reading only strengthens my interest in what they touch – the materials they rest their weight upon. The photograph almost highlights this paradox, how social forces get materialized in such simple, quotidian forms as church pews. Whose wood are we really dealing with here? The photograph is literally about the interaction of organic materials with very established religious ones and expectations. Curator: An astute and compelling perspective! The material reality and its interaction with symbolic expectation... Editor: …Creates this fascinating tension and ultimately provides the space for interpreting their relationship and the forces governing their lives and the space in which those two things intersect. Curator: A perspective I shall consider more in future visits to the image, thanks!