In her series, All You Can Feel, Sarah Schoenfeld flips conventional discourse about drugs on its head. Whereas most are concerned with the way psychoactive substances make you feel as a result of ingestion, she is more interested in the way they make you feel as a result of perception.
In her series, All You Can Feel, Sarah Schoenfeld drops recreational drugs onto film negatives to expose beautiful psychotropic universes hidden within.
All You Can Feel is a stunning amalgamation of different practices: photography, alchemy and psychology. For the series, Schoenfeld mixed different drugs – both legal and illicit – with water and dropped the concoction onto exposed film negatives.
Turning her studio into a laboratory of sorts, the chemical reactions were then magnified to expose unique internal universes.
Chatting with Kaltblut Magazine, Schoenfeld talks about her process:
“I have actually done something unbelievably simple: I have mixed the chemical components of photography and drugs. And that means: I have sprayed the developed negatives- on them there is nothing further, a monochrome surface- and I threw a liquid drug substance on it.”
The interaction between the photo emulsion that contains silver and the drug itself, has produced some incredible shapes and colours, they “behaved” in some ways. Basically, I have already used all substances I was interested in, due to their club context or because of their historical meaning. So to speak, concrete ketamine or speed from the club scene, lsd or heroin from history. Then I went to through the normal photo process and got prints of the negatives.”
The series is absolutely mesmerising, encouraging you to consider new dimensions and how they can be accessed through different means. If you want to read more about the series and Schoenfeld’s process and intent, check out this interview with her on Kaltblut.
Otherwise, get lost below.
