Analysis: Psychoanalytic Interiors

For much of her life, American photographer Shellburne Thurber has been engaged in an ongoing photographic investigation of the relationship between constructed space and human energy. Long intrigued by the idea of lived space as an extension of the body and a site for projection, she has photographed a wide va- riety of subjects, beginning with the homes of family and friends who have passed, to generic back road motels, churches, aban- doned and derelict homes and hospitals, as well as commis- sioned projects such as the renovation of the Boston Athenæum and the Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site. She is especially interested in spaces that are both public and private. This volume comprises a selection of images Thurber made in 1999 and 2000 of psychoanalysts’ offices in Buenos Aires, Ar- gentina, and the New England area of the United States. From the text Psychoanalytic Interiors by Lia Gangitano: While the subject of psychoanalysis has appeared in the work of many contemporary artists, particularly through the citation of psychoanalytic theory, Thurber takes another route in arriving at one of her most significant bodies of work, a series of square format chromogenic prints depicting the unoccupied office spaces of psychoanalysts. Initiated in 1998 in Buenos Aires, the project continued through a Bunting Fellowship in 1999–2000, enabling her to pursue the project in the Boston area.