Domestic Arrangements

Between the years of 2001-2003, I visited the homes of family, friends and neighbors with a 4x5 analog film camera and created still lifes from their collected objects to illustrate how mass-produced items become personalized and culturally identified.

For my project Domestic Arrangements, I arranged and framed these objects in a way that called attention to the idiosyncratic qualities, creating hyper-real images. For example, I translated the textures of carpeting, fabric, plastic, or fur, to provide a tactile experience for the viewer; I used longer exposure times to saturate already bold colors and I framed items usually seen from above or below, at eye level, so the viewers’ sense of scale becomes distorted.

My resulting 30 x 40-inch prints are magnifications of the material world. They provide a richer visual experience for the viewer, allowing them to see these objects take on their own characters. Viewers may identify with them or their imagined owners through their distinctive qualities and reflect on the divide of high and low culture, societal conventions, and the popular culture of a given generation.

In the digital age, these mid-century objects are part of our collective memory and reflect how value and taste are defined. Using film photography, a material format, I found meaning in the objects people held onto. I chose to document each of them during a time when we were shifting away from materiality as a culture to preserve a shared memory.