Alchemy of the Unknowns

What would pictures look like when two strangers from Boston and Phoenix, separated by 2,700 miles, collaborate and double-expose the same rolls of film?

We are Lisa Tang Liu (MA) and James David Tabor (AZ), two photographers who connected on Instagram during the pandemic over our return to the film medium, Holga cameras, and conversations about Daoism.

In the spring of 2023, we began our conceptual project in "film swaps," the practice of having one photographer first expose images on an entire roll of film and mail it to another, who would then photograph on the same film again from the beginning. We live in very different places, and we wanted to see how they would look united as double-exposures, amidst a country so divided in geography and opinions.

Each of us had no (or very little) knowledge of what the other person had photographed. The end results here are all surprises. Challenged with the uncertainties of using film and the discomfort of relinquishing control over the fate of our own individual creations, we learn to accept, and even embrace, the unknowns in our collaboration.

Differences and uncertainties can result in something beautiful.