The images in “Independence” were taken over several years at an annual bonfire held at Back Beach in Rockport, Massachusetts. There is a natural fascination with fire, both because of its beauty and because of its associations with war and natural disaster. Ben Sloat combines the fascination of the huge fire, with the outlines and shadows of the local boys and girls who gather to be close to it. The young people seem to have an insouciant disregard for the ambiguities of the scene around them. The images place them as isolated figures against the holocaust, standing by quietly in one picture on what could be a floor of skulls. Independence Day, in Sloat’s eye, becomes an odd juxtaposition of fire, anonymous crowds and a few young individuals standing quietly before the inferno.
Ben Sloat is a recent graduate of the Tufts University/School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, where he studied with the documentary photographers Bill Burke and Jim Dow among others. He and collaborator Steve Aishman have previously shown at Safe-T-Gallery presenting their award winning series “Half-Asian” a continuing investigation of ethnic self-identity in America.
“ Independence” will run concurrently at Safe-T-Gallery with “New York Etchings” a retrospective of the work of Ben’s father Richard Sloat.