Sleep Creek
Dylan Hausthor and Paul Guilmoth.
Void
English
Softcover, Open-spine
2nd Print
Edition of 2000
144 Pages
170 x 215 mm
2020
ISBN 9786185479060
Sleep Creek is a landscape filled with trauma and beauty. It’s a place where animals are only seen when they’re being hunted and humans balance between an unapologetic existence and an abyss of secrecy. These images manipulate a landscape that is simultaneously autobiographical, documentary, and fictional: a weaving of myth and symbol in order to be confronted with the experiential. Following the rituals of those within it, Sleep Creek is an obsession between the subject and the photographer — a compulsion to reveal its shrouded Nature.
Dylan and Paul have been working together since 2011 but they only started making ‘Sleep Creek’ in 2016, when they lived together in a cold house on Peaks Island, a small island only accessible by boat off of the coast of Maine. They gave themselves the boundary of the island as a perimeter to make photographs. It began as a traditional interest in place—a documentary of a piece of land and stories of its inhabitants, but as the work began to expand they let their thoughts cross-pollinate with those outside the island, namely their families and the lands that we were raised on.
Sleep Creek is entirely shot in New England, for the reason that this was the only region that the artists knew. Even though the place holds a strong regional identity, Paul and Dylan didn’t want the work to represent or speak to a regional identity but to use the region as a backdrop for more unhindered ideas of story, myth, and character. That said, they do believe there is something specifically inspiring about the simultaneous history and youth of this part of America. In their own words: “Colonialism is apparent everywhere, every square foot of woods has been tainted by something human, and every pond is always covered with algae. There is anonymity in all of their characters, akin to the faceless identity of small-town New England”.
(source: https://void.photo/sleepcreek)
About the Artists
Paul Guilmoth and Dylan Hausthor are a collaborative artist duo based in the woods of the Northeast. Their practice is primarily focused on photographic and bookmaking art; occasionally questioning the boundaries of both. They co-founded the publication studio Wilt Press in the winter of 2015 and together make work that centers around the myth of place and the complexity of the image-based narrative.
pguilmoth.com and dylanhausthor.com
(source: https://void.photo/sleepcreek)
About the Publisher
Void is an independent publishing house dedicated to photography books and education. The project is driven by its founders Myrto Steirou and João Linneu. Void works with both established and up-and-coming artists, proudly fostering photographers’ debut books.
void.photo
(source: https://void.photo/contact)
