Corinne May Botz

Corinne May Botz published a book, The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death, in 2004 to great acclaim. The subject of those photographs and research is a collection of crime scene dioramas at the Baltimore Medical Examiner’s office. Botz claims that in her photographs she investigates “American socio-cultural attitudes toward death, femininity, and fear as they relate to and are embodied in architectural space.” In her series of haunted house imagery, Botz herself is like a ghost, hovering over corners of forgotten rooms, empty attics, and basement stairs, using photographic film to absorb essences and presences that might still linger, and in doing so extends the Victorian tradition of female sensitivity to the otherworldly. These photographs then are a perfect pairing of the domestic void and the inherent melancholy of photographs. In obscure and legendary haunted spaces Botz employs long exposure times that vary from a few minutes to a few hours. Botz appears to be able to observe and then absorb the complex layers of presence and absence that thicken the atmosphere of not only these rooms but also to capture our personal and collective notions of ghostly intimations.

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