Phantomwise, references a poem of Lewis Carrol, as does a good chunk of Polixeni Papapetrou’s work.
Papapetrou photographs depicts her child as a ‘portal leading into the dark labyrinth’. A labyrinth of infinite possibilities of alien “selves”. This is what interests me about her work and the reason why I am researching her. A little like I have noticed about Erik Johanssons performative photography and also relevant to my project, ‘Phantomwise’ uses photography to depict the ‘ghostly deployment of the self’ and rate identity itself the photographic condition that is above all else.
Fairytales and the surreal are also important in her work. It is Papapetrou’s contemporary depictions of this slightly surreal world of imagination and play that is relevant to at least my 1st image of my project.
In ‘Dream child’ Papapetrou again explores the theme of the ‘interpretative possibilities made by the viewer of the images, blurring the boundary of reality and fantasy. Again using ‘the imaginative theatre of childhood’.
‘Haunted Country’ references photographs made by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carrol) using his favourite models; Alexandra Kitchin, Alice Liddell, Julia Arnold, Irene MacDonald, yet set in iconic Victorian (as in, our State) settings. Dodgson’s Victorian photographs ‘distinguished the role of the child from the rational, active adult world’. It is this otherworldliness, or ambiguity that interests Papapetrou, and me, for my work in general, but primarily for my 1st difficult image as i'm finding it hard to depict childhood, or 'innocence' as engaging and complex. Interesting.