Museum of Photography
Anticipating the camera's 200th anniversary in a few years. As revolutionary products emerge from the ashes of film, Dennis Manarchy envisions the Museum of Photography as both an exhibition space specializing in world class photography, as well as the final resting home for what might be the world's largest film camera with an actual lens.
Manarchy calls this project "a swan song to the brilliance of film." With an earlier prototype camera, Manarchy traveled to Louisiana to capture the Cajun population.
Manarchy has not only proposed building a shrine to a medium in its twilight, but he has also chosen a specific subject matter: He calls it the "Vanishing Cultures" project. The endeavor is as big as the camera: build a brand-new camera; travel a mere 20,000 miles across the country making portraits; then display the photographs, which can be expanded, without Photoshop, to the size of a building; donate the camera to the Museum.
It's no doubt ambitious and still developing conceptually, but Manarchy seems optimistic that this pipe dream with be actualized. "It's a cool idea, it's big and crazy," he says. But beyond the shock factor of scale and cost, Manarchy seems committed to the idea that this is a final ode to film and to other cultural treasures that may soon fade with it.
The Museum design, sleek, silver, and sensual like many of Manarchy's photographs, is countersunk into the earth and surrounded by a waterfall, and features a variety of spaces and methods for viewing and displaying photographic art.
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