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Copyright © Ri Anderson 2008
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| Art Papers, September/October 1997 (continued) Revealing Regionalism | |
| foster home. Perhaps the most telling are those images where Erin is the lone subject. In Bedtime, in what would seem to be her bedroom, she sits on a bed, with her legs pulled tightly up to her chin. A big stuffed bear is on a nearby chair. A tiny bear pokes its head out of a tissue box. Children’s shoes and socks are scattered on the floor. A deflated Mylar balloon announcing ‘Happy Birthday’ has been pinned to the wall above her head. But implications of this being a makeshift accommodation soon become apparent: the desk beside the bed is crammed with adult textbooks; the newspaper clippings taped on the wall feature such article headings as ‘You know you’re getting old when…’ and ‘Long live the mid-life crisis.’ Erin’s space is in reality someone else’s; it is temporary. Despondently, she looks down and away from the viewer. Aware of the displacement the young girl has endured, we want to develop, with the photographer’s gentle assistance, a social dialogue with her. Yet even when supposedly ‘posing,’ Erin only stares blankly at the viewer in Erin’s New Pajamas. Behind her in the shadowy corner of this master bedroom is a hunched-over figure doing something at the night stand. Anderson’s preference for interior scenes seems to parallel her exploration into this child’s inner life. We wonder what Erin sees as she looks into a mirror in Her Mother’s Vanity. Only her reflection is visible and in sharp detail. Looking with quiet absorption at her mirror image, she observes her slightly freckled face and dark hair and studies herself intensely, holding her hands up to her temples, as if she were trying to change the way she looked. All other objects in the room, including the cluttered dresser, are blurred. The sight of a wedding veil hanging off the mirror’s corner poses questions about ownership and how culture manifests itself and its values in artifacts. Avoiding the romanticizing of childhood, as seen in the work of Sally Mann and Emmet Gowin, Anderson shows us the alternative: a child with no real family and an uncertain future. So even though an image such as Posing with Chris' Cigarette bears resemblance to one by Mann of her daughter, Jesse, the meaning is different. We feel sadness for a child who thinks that smoking makes her feel like an adult. Perhaps, in Erin's mind, it is adulthood which will someday liberate her from the control of others. And although she is seen having fun in Dress Up and Rough House, Erin is markedly somber as she goes in for her weekly counseling sessions at the Family Care Center. Joy is a momentary escape in her fragile and complicated life. ..... The surprising merit of this show is its narrative elements rather than the announced theme, with its sociologically laden term 'regionalism.' For it is the stories told visually within the documentary photographs by Casey, Anderson, and Verene that make this show so strong: all honor common, ordinary people without reverting to fictionalization. [Susan Todd-Raque] |
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