How I wonder what you are
70x70 cm
LensCulture Review
“How I wonder what you are” uses (and abuses) juvenile imagery to explore and challenge our perception of childhood.
The polaroid series demonstrates a visual language and aesthetic sensibility that is intimate, and one that deviates from the mere representation of facts. The medium is used as a vessel to transcend the viewer into an emotional experience, while at the same time challenging the medium of photography by the employment of an old recording device; one that reminds us of our childhood and brings memories to the viewer's attention.
In this sense, the work is universal and open-ended; there’s room for the viewer to imagine, think and attempt to decipher the nuances of the particular situation. At the same time, the polaroids each seem to carry their individual part of a collective, coherent narrative in which the sense of innocence traditionally associated with childhood is left withered and dismantled.
The polaroids have each been post-processed, not digitally, but either by the use of carefully timed bursts of heat in a microwave oven or by exposure to icy cold temperatures in a freezer during the first half hour of their development. As such the physical form of the series mirrors the intellectual content in a shared framework of disintegrated forms and warped perceptions.
Additionally, the print edition of the series comes in a childishly oversized form, measuring 70x70 cm, thereby placing the viewer in an infantile position from which objects appear larger than they would be perceived by matured eyes.