Untitled #6 (wonder)
Anna Gaskell
(1996)
Photograph/Chromogenic print
19 x 23 1/4 in
19 x 23 1/4 in
Anna Gaskell strikes again in this image, continuing on the theme of narrative photography, through which she often captures the image of the constructed fairytale-like child in theatrical scenes that reference popular culture created by adults, for children. This image pretty blatantly references Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, with the apparently pre-adolescent girl’s dress mirroring the popular character’s outfit. The body of the child is captured in mid air; her head severed by the harshness of the frame. The child here is literally frozen in space and time, hung by the controls of something beyond herself, and missing her head to sort things out. The body seems to have no control over its suspension, as the upright arms seem to be wavering cautiously, with fingers raising slightly. The position of the female body itself in the frame correlates to the idea that children have no control over their bodies, or lives, fitting with the idea of childhood as a social construction by adults. Children are constructed by the adult world, and are simply floating through it, while trying to maintain their ideas about their own, separate world which we have created to be known as childhood; this innocent, pure place that adults have categorized, theorized, and dissected into specific stages of development and predictable lifestyles.
When you take into consideration the Alice in Wonderland reference, the figure that is so lost in space begins to seem stuck in-between realities, just as Alice was stuck between her understandings of whether or not the things happening to her were indeed fractions of reality. However, the figure's ambiguity and strange position leaves the viewer wondering how this narrative ends.
Artist Biography: Available at The Guggenheim
Writing on Photograph: The Guggenheim and Utata
Exhibitions: Role Models: Feminine Identity in Contemporary American Photography (2008-2009)
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