Vacation
Working with found 35mm negatives, this project is based around photo manipulation to divert the viewers perspective on what is truly happening within the image. A subtle but deliberate approach to creating a small archive of work that mimics a page in a family album dating back to 1960.
Investigating the depth and deliberate nature of 35mm photography and combining this with contemporary ideas of photo manipulation (photoshop), reflects the contextual relationship between the subject and me. By being a young woman in 2020, I am in a privileged position to manipulate my images in such a way to protect the vulnerable from further exploitation that the woman in my images may have faced in earlier lines of work in 1960, or in more recent times when she was an object for sale on a popular online marketplace.
The outcome of my project is my visual response to the original found images to which I stumbled across online. Feeling a sense of responsibility to cover up my half naked subject and reinvent a parallel life that she may of lead alongside working in the erotica job industry. As an artist I wanted to be ethical and respectful in my approach to ‘Mary’ by not exploiting her any more than she may have been already.
Comments by Chris Stokes