Dust to Dust
- Artist: Penny Slinger
- Date: 1970–7
- Medium: Black and white gelatin silver prints on paper, on black and white gelatin silver print on paper
- Dimensions: frame: 390 x 545 x 45 mm
- Museum: Tate Britain
- Collection record: Tate Britain website
Listen to the free audio guide
About this artwork
This is the “Dust to Dust” by Penny Slinger. It’s a black‑and‑white gelatin silver print collage that sits on paper, a series of self‑portraits she staged over seven years at the nearly derelict Lilford Hall near Peterborough. Slinger chose the abandoned stately home because she felt it held a “psyche‑exploring” power that compelled her to turn its images into layered collages.
The work came out of a book she published in 1977 titled *An Exorcism*, which gathered the series into a single volume. In making these collages she was very much in the spirit of early surrealists – think Claude Cahun, Hannah Höch, and Dorothea Behrens – using theatrical staging to probe the unconscious. Her goal was to peel away “others’ projections” and reach a form of psychic integration that she linked to self‑liberation.
The images themselves are striking: stark monochrome, layered and reassembled, giving each self‑portrait a dream‑like quality. Slinger was not only a photographer but also worked in drama, appearing in an avant‑garde film in the early ‘70s and designing for a Picasso play. Her collage books earned her early critical acclaim, and she even received a feature in *Spare Rib* for the “graphic images of phantasy” she created.
Overall, *Dust to Dust* is a powerful meditation on memory, desire, and the psyche, all wrapped in the austere aesthetic of black and white.
See it in person
Dust to Dust is in the collection of Tate Britain on Millbank, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
