Laurie Tumer: When The Evidence Is Glowing
by Karin Kloosterman, Jerusalem, Israel on 09.17.06
After suffering through a pesticide poisoning in her garden, American photographer, Laurie Tumer was determined to show the omnipresence and danger of chemicals in our lives. She took innocent images- childrens’ booties, a can of Coke, and flowers as examples and revealed how easily noxious pesticides can infiltrate the most intimate places in the home. Her exhibit is called Glowing Evidence. ::Grist
Recently, Tumer has decided to take her Glowing Evidence project one step further. She writes TreeHugger:
“I am currently working on many new pieces. I am photographing fat as this is where pesticides are stored in the body. It is difficult to detoxify them in the fat and this is what creates many of the health problems.
SHOTS, a U.S. photography journal edited by Russell Joslin, has featured me in their Autumn 2006 issue and since the interview, I have been thinking more about our pictorial impulse - how the project is essentially motivated by our need to visualize what we can't see - sort of like the early illustrations of the ocean floor and how these curiosities lead us to more precise visualizations of reality. And how visualizations of this nature impact social awareness and political change. I also am thinking more about how visualizations in the environment and that the body can't help but affect the traditions of landscape and portrait photography."
Tumer's images have recently been used by Dr. Marg Sanborn, a rural physical and pesticide researcher of Canada, who took her photographs from the Glowing Evidence series to train rural physicians about pesticides and how to recognize pesticide ailments that are often confused with other diagnoses.
Last month, Tumer was invited to be in a show at the Harwood Art Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico titled New Mexico Pics: The State of Photography. It also featured work by Patrick Nagatani, Siegfried Halus, Robert Stivers, Holly Roberts, Miguel Gandert and others.
"I currently have several pieces in our faculty show at Santa Fe Community College where I teach photography," Tumer tells TreeHugger. "We have a wonderful gallery there with the most extraordinary art facilities in the state. I am showing Studies in Red, White, and Blue – lenticular works - that can be viewed here."
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This technique has been around for at least a decade to teach people about chemical and biological laboratory safety. You let beginners have at a blank sample of whatever their job will have them handling, not mentioning that it has been spiked with the fluorescent dye. THen you turn on a video camera with the right filters and track the mess from inadequate handling procedures.
I have MCS (multiple chemical sensitivity) any help?
I am a Respiratory Therapist that after 30 years of exposure to a certain medicine- became chemically sensitive-- to anything that is chemical flying thru the air: exhust, perfumes, yard chemicals, purell hand sanitizer, and generally any thing chemically with a smell. I just need help -- now my joints ache constantly--- I guess that's part of it --- there seems to be no help out there for most of us. The experts think it is all a mental condition. I just don't know where to turn anymore. Any suggestions?
Thanks,
Marsha