Clerestory
Ethan Jackson: clerestory
Denver Public Library: Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales Branch
1498 Irving Street, Denver, CO 80204
2016-present
Admission: free
Review by J. Benjamin Burney
Photography has become a ubiquitous form of communication in our twenty first-century society. How quickly we all pull out our camera phones to capture a perfect sunset, a memorable birthday party, or a portrait of ourselves. Ethan Jackson’s clerestory is no different. Using age-old practices, the artist immerses you in a room-sized camera and allows you to reflect on and dissolve the barriers between subject, object, inside, and outside.
An exterior view of the corner of the Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales Library where Ethan Jackson’s clerestory, 2016, camera obscura, is housed. Image by J. Benjamin Burney.
The word “camera” derives from Latin and translates as “chamber.” The camera obscura is an early seventeenth-century term which refers to a darkened room with a small hole or lens on one side through which an image is projected onto the opposite wall. In clerestory, Jackson takes the camera obscura and, using mirrors and sunlight, evolves it into an immersive art experience where the outside is projected inside. The inside in this case is a wing of the Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales Library Branch on the first floor, in the Story Time tower which is located behind the children’s section.
An interior view of the corner of the Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales Library where Ethan Jackson’s clerestory, 2016, camera obscura is housed. Image by J. Benjamin Burney.
Created as part of the City of Denver’s Public Art Program in 2016, clerestory integrates architecture and optical artwork to create a scene of nature on the vaulted ceiling of the Story Time tower. “I think the idea is to be outside without having to be outside, at least that’s what I get,” says Edmund Kiang, the branch manager, as he closes the orange gradient curtains and opens the small shutters at the top of the ceiling.
A view of the corner and ceiling of Ethan Jackson’s clerestory, 2016, camera obscura. Image by J. Benjamin Burney.
I stand in the conical-shaped orange room as sunlight strikes the white screen covering the ceiling. As my eyes adjust, I see a masterpiece of light, shadow, sky, and trees projected onto the screen and reaching down onto the orange walls. The whole image looks like a quickly shifting impressionist painting. I immediately feel what Ed had mentioned: the wild beauty of nature subdued by the quiet walls of the library. It creates a reverent moment where one is reminded of daydreaming—staring up into the rotating mobiles which hung above our cribs as babies.
A view of the ceiling image of Ethan Jackson’s clerestory, 2016, camera obscura. Image by J. Benjamin Burney.
It is a testament to the cross-disciplinary skill and ingenuity of the artist to create such a wonderful work of art merely using sunlight and mirrors. The piece is dynamic, constantly changing, inferring, projecting, and reflecting like the art of photography itself. clerestory allows one to be inside of the camera, to see the image on the lens of one’s eye and recognize the power of the mind to create meaning from light and shadow. And what better place to have such a space than among the volumes of literature which reflect the light from the great minds of our times.
J. Benjamin Burney (he/his) is an MFA and MBA candidate at the University of Colorado in Boulder. He specializes in creating immersive installations using performance and mixed media works. He is the Creative Director of Zoid Art Haus, a design house based in Denver, Colorado that uses storytelling to create experiences, products, and services geared toward making a more inclusive, equitable, and empathetic society.
