Fuel for Mankind explores the photographic intersection where ‘the real’ is both true and fabricated at the same time. These images are staged dreamscapes, initially captured through the standard ‘’snapshot’ medium of the Polaroid, then scanned, digitally enhanced and finally (re)printed.
The series came to be as a result of a stay at a holiday house, and a trip to the butcher where the produce was packed in brown paper bags with the words Fuel for Mankind printed in red. The images are layered with opposites and juxtapositions, details that all point to things out of order and expose our initial belief in the photograph as a document.
My interest is in the tension created between the document and the staged tableau, between reality and fantasy. The resulting images are hybrids, a fusion of the immediate representation of the Polaroid and the process of digital alteration, a union of imagination and realism.
Fuel for Mankind reflects both a need for proof of reality and a longing for things that can offer temporary escape into daydreams.