Reflected
By Jessica Zerbel
22 Apr 2009
This series is an on going project that I started in January, 2009. I used it as my finial portfolio for my senior exhibition in order to get my BFA and has been displayed in the Devos Museum at Northern Michigan University. This is something that I plan on expanding on and continuing throughout my life, I have become extremely passionate about it and am beyond proud of the results. The following is my statement concerning the series!
In the fall of 2007 I spent four months living in a dorm at the University of Reading, England. In that situation, surrounded by students from Western Europe, I became aware of how much each of us is a reflection of our current condition. Completely removed from everything that I knew, I surrounded myself with the things that were familiar and as I became more comfortable in my new home, my dorm room slowly filled with things that I had once thought foreign. I now know that we are shaped by the societies we are brought up in but we are also products of the places we spend time in, and we each become a reflection of that state. Eventually our environments become a reflection of us. My photographs are informed by this idea and are an exploration of how people are influenced by, and represented through, their surroundings. Simultaneously, these portraits are a reflection of me as I interpreted the people I photographed, chose camera angle and lens, and composed each image.
Ideally these photographs are to be shown in a gallery, behind a sheet of glass which then reflects the gallery/museum they hang in, as wells as the viewer. The viewer becomes confronted by their own reflection as it becomes layered with the images. As a result the series is also means for reflection on how one interacts with one's own surroundings.
2 responses
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dominic serrao gave props (23 Apr 2009):
great photos... wonderful essay!!
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Syble Brabham said (28 Apr 2009):
good story and so true
