Bridges Over Flint
Bridges Over Flint 1 - 24
2016
silver gelatin print developed with Flint, Michigan tap water,
vitamin C, bleach, and wine
8 x 10 inches
Bridge Over Flint 24
2016
silver gelatin print developed with Flint, Michigan tap water,
vitamin C, bleach, and wine
8 x 10 inches
Bridge Over Flint 10
2016
silver gelatin print developed with Flint, Michigan tap water,
vitamin C, bleach, and wine
8 x 10 inches
Bridge Over Flint 8
2016
silver gelatin print developed with Flint, Michigan tap water,
vitamin C, bleach, and wine
8 x 10 inches
Action 4
2016
silver gelatin print developed with Flint, Michigan tap water, vitamin C, bleach, and wine
8 x 10 inches
Hearing 2
2016
silver gelatin print developed with Flint, Michigan tap water, vitamin C, bleach, and wine
8 x 10 inches
Planetarium B2
2016
silver gelatin print developed with Flint, Michigan tap water, vitamin C, bleach, and wine
8 x 10 inches
“The distorted, faded colors of Matthew Brandt’s “Bridges Over Flint” photography series aren’t just an aesthetic choice. Brandt developed the negatives using a solution of Flint, Michigan, tap water and vitamin C, turning the resulting gelatin silver prints into physical evidence of the dangers Flint residents faced when, in 2014, the city switched from supplying treated water to Flint River water and contaminants caused lead from the town’s pipes to leach into the water supply.
“I toned the prints with red wine and applied bleach over some areas,” he told Shutterbug. Together with the lead and other toxins inherent in Flint’s water, this caused unexpected effects in the printed image. The work is a reminder of the dangers, invisible to the naked eye, faced by the people of Flint during the water crisis.”
—ARTNET news
The Detroit Institute of Arts Has Bought Murky Photographs That an Artist Developed in Water From Flint, Michigan. Photographer Matthew Brandt took a toxic turn for his series "Bridges Over Flint." by Sarah Cascone, 2018
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/matthew-brandts-flint-michigan-dia-1330223
“The bridges offer a visual reminder of the lives directly affected by unsafe drinking water. In Pictures from Flint (Bridges over Flint) (2016), each photograph is a humble eight-by-ten-inch gelatin silver print that has been hand toned by a number of peculiar substances—red wine, bleach, and Vitamin C—all added to Flint tap water to accentuate the impurities of what commonly pours from the city’s facets. Sequenced from dark to light, the photographs leave the impression that Flint is slowly fading from view. For its residents, it must feel like, they, too, are barely visible in their struggle for safe drinking water and healthy living conditions.”
—aperature, Matthew Brandt’s Poison pictures, by Gabriel H. Sanchez, 2016