This body of work is an extension of When Time Stood Still, showcasing a narrative photo sequence with a central storyline around a 21st lockdown birthday. I achieve this through props, set, character and lighting, focusing on mood and emotion.

 

Freud, in his essay ‘The Uncanny’ wrote that “doubts whether an apparently animate being is really alive; or conversely, whether a lifeless object might not be in fact animate” can create this feeling of the uncanny (Freud, 1919).

 

I create a feeling of the uncanny in my work through unfamiliar, unmotivated lighting and careful posing of the subject. This is to reflect the strange, surreal and eerie lockdown period.

 

The familiar became very unfamiliar and ordinary domestic spaces suddenly felt different, carrying a different meaning with them. The mundane flat interior is a reference to the ordinary domestic spaces in which we spent most of our time during lockdown.

 

The subject acts inanimate whilst a zoom celebration takes place through the laptop screen. She doesn’t respond to the zoom party in the way you’d expect; this is a metaphor for her disconnection and disengagement to the world. It is also a comment on the behind the scenes of screens in modern society, how images don’t always tell the truth. The photographs themselves aim to blur the boundaries between truth and fiction.

 

Throughout the series, a chair stands empty on the other side of the table, symbolic of loneliness and alienation. The candle wax drips down the sides of the untouched cake to add to the sense of melancholy. Decaying flowers sit on the table, allegorical of the passage of time and how nothing much has changed; it felt constant and endless. The balloons are scattered on the floor, representing her lack of energy and motivation. Her face is concealed to make the series more universal and this way the focus is on the elements in the frame. The washed out, overexposed window symbolises a disconnection to the outdoors, and it acts as a window into the sitter’s world.

 

The aim is for my work to be emotional and relatable; many people missed out on important celebrations, so I hope this work speaks to a wide audience.