The Photographs shown in the previous post were used as a starting point for my second Minor project. The quotes below were from my research interviews with people giving their own interpretation or background to the photographs.
The Missing Collection
“This is a little girl, who, who lives in this big house, in the English countryside and she’s not allowed to go outside the gate and she keeps her days collecting small things she finds in the garden, and she makes them into little collages in her wheel barrow. So she has very particular ordered things in her barrow that she drives around with, its little clusters of things and she doesn’t speak to anyone. ever. when people ask her questions she just creates a little collection of objects from her garden and that will be her answer to peoples questions.”
Digital collage
Shadow Box - Oak box, laser engraving, Hand Embroidery.
Shadow Box (detail) - Brass fixtures, leather handle
The Souvenir
“I find this one really odd, Maybe it’s because this one is darker than the other ones, and the hat stands out it is because her hat is so black, because the rest of the photo shows that is in really bright sunlight. It’s really odd because it looks like a blisteringly hot day, and she’s wearing this thick wool coat and a black hat and she’s got like black clothing underneath a black dress and black shoes and she’s obviously in her sunday best and a little boy who must probably be about 2 or 3, on his little bicycle, and he’s in his best clothes as well all polished up nicely and so I find that really bizarre. Like it’s some sort of formal occasion, I think it’s that they have gone, or are going to a funeral. And the little boy is happy because he doesn’t know what’s going on really, but the mum looks a bit, her eyes look a bit sad and really heavy and her earrings are just massive Pat Butcher size earrings. And they go with the coat and I can’t work out wether she’s really sad or she celebrating. So I think what has happened to her is this, I think her husband has died, and she’s actually quite happy about it, she’s like a trodden woman, she had a terrible time with him. She looks really like she’s glad that he’s gone but she looks knackered she’s had a hard life because her eyes look really sad and heavy. And the little boy doesn’t really know, he doesn’t really care because he didn’t see his dad much, and he’s quite happy that he has got his bike to keep him happy and he’s in his best clothes and he is going out for the day with his mum. So she’s going to a funeral, or they have been to a funeral, and I think that she will see this now as a new life, and she’s going to have a great time, and she is going to leave her little boy. She’s going to go off and have the life of riley and go meet some other fellas and have another life and have independence and she is going to leave her son behind. I think that this photograph is the only photograph her son is going to have of him and his mum. And I think that he gets given this photograph in a box from his mum after she’s died, and he also gets the earrings, the really big white Pat Butcher earrings, with some photographs but this is the only one that he has got with the both of them together. Maybe he goes to live with his nan, not a children’s home. I think there’s sad and happy, real contrast going on there just like the sunshine and the shade.”
The original photograph
Brooch Earrings - Wax, gold plated gilding metal, silk.
