Competitive Start
Competitive Start contemplates how individualexistence is mediated and shaped by the perceivedneed in English culture for competition and comparison.
Using the genre of portraiture, the on-going body of workexplores the fine line in children’s competitivepast-times of, on the one hand, instilling ambition, self-confidence and ‘howto play the game’ and, on the other, planting the seed of future feelings ofinadequacy and insecurity as self worth is set up to be dependent on what othersachieve.
Thecompetitors were each photographed on location, just before or just after theycompeted. Dressed in their uniforms and aware of being photographed they weresimply asked to ‘think about how you look at other competitors when you lineup/enter the ring’. So documenting not the children’s actual physicalexperience of competition but rather their performance of being a competitor. However, on closer inspection, thevulnerability of the specific individual portraits increasingly strikes one.Their performance is not seamless, creating a reflective oscillation between afascinating ‘known’ type and the just visible, more ordinary, empathetic frailhuman individual. Their body language exposes the anxiety of meetingexpectations which, perhaps, we can all empathise with in today’s competitive,comparative society.
Using the genre of portraiture, the on-going body of workexplores the fine line in children’s competitivepast-times of, on the one hand, instilling ambition, self-confidence and ‘howto play the game’ and, on the other, planting the seed of future feelings ofinadequacy and insecurity as self worth is set up to be dependent on what othersachieve.
Thecompetitors were each photographed on location, just before or just after theycompeted. Dressed in their uniforms and aware of being photographed they weresimply asked to ‘think about how you look at other competitors when you lineup/enter the ring’. So documenting not the children’s actual physicalexperience of competition but rather their performance of being a competitor. However, on closer inspection, thevulnerability of the specific individual portraits increasingly strikes one.Their performance is not seamless, creating a reflective oscillation between afascinating ‘known’ type and the just visible, more ordinary, empathetic frailhuman individual. Their body language exposes the anxiety of meetingexpectations which, perhaps, we can all empathise with in today’s competitive,comparative society.
