Ghost Book

Roland Barthes believed that ghosts are contained in all photographs; that the photograph itself is a spectral remnant of a thing long dead. This is apparent in the quiet, eerie, yet familiar photos of Ghost Book, a partnership between poet Marc Zegans and photographer Tsar Fedorsky that meditates on what is present in absence. 

The project itself is a product of absence. After the Covid-19 pandemic derailed Zegans’ planned residency at the former estate of sculptor Paul Manship, Zegans employed the help of Fedorsky, a local photographer with on-site access. Fedorsky’s photographs of the vacant residence realized and transformed Zegans’ vision, placing his absence from the property in dialogue with the ghosts of the house’s history. The result is timeless and timely, both an artifact of an era of social distancing and a perennial venture into our ephemeral place in time. 

The work is split into three sections: Stone takes Manship’s abandoned sculptures as symbols of art’s drive to endure, Ghost invites us to glimpse apparitions in scenes of the empty house, and Life depicts the longevity of the natural world compared to human structures. 

The allure of the Manship house is like the allure of photography: each carries proof of life in the dead. Our minds fill in the silhouette of past inhabitants in empty chairs and open doorways. A dark road stretches to infinitude; we wonder what ghosts haunt its path, and what they might say to us. —Maya Lerman