Children in Homemade Costumes
Children in Homemade Costumes is an ongoing portrait series of large format, black and white film portraits made in the alleys and green spaces of Montreal.
The photographs were inspired by a job I took as a nanny for an imaginative 5-year-old. Due to the pandemic, and his pre-existing health challenges he was quite isolated from other children, so a big part of my job was spent engaging in imaginative play. This was both challenging and wonderful remembering how to pretend, create, and inhabit scenarios and characters for periods of time. It made me contemplate how play is essential for both how we learn as well as for the functioning of our mental health.
Imagination is essential to who we are as human beings. It has been scientifically shown that on average it takes about 400 repetitions to create a new synapse in the brain. However, it only takes between 10 – 20 repetitions if the new behaviour is learned through play.
Play is essential to who we are as human beings and for the very survival of our species. I would argue that a lot of the problems that we currently face in the world are a result of systems that deny us this key element of who we are.
This project celebrates the imagination of children, who are our future, and the homemade, which for me will always be best made. A book will be released soon.
