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"Still and Silent", a series of photographs of mannequins,
is the result of a loose collaboration between photographer
Ivana Pavelka and New Jersey-based photographer Ted Harrison
over the course of several months.
The exhibit offers the viewer a chance to experience the uncanny
way in which these inanimate representations of ourselves are
able to bring out a range of emotional responses in us; some
immediate and familiar, others somewhat eerie and less distinct.
For both photographers, there is a familiar sense of play in
the approach to the mannequins which recalls childlike play
with dolls or action figures, though the figures in "Still
and Silent" were arranged by the photographers only through
the lens of the camera; otherwise, they remained untouched in
the environments in which they were found. Like children's toys,
the mannequins are depicted in various states of care, from
lovingly decorated and reverently presented to discarded, disassembled,
and broken.
The photographs of the mannequins become a collaboration, extending
from the person who posed and decorated them, to the photographers
who reinterpreted them, and on to the viewer who will take his
or her own interpretations with them from the photographs.
Marian Wezmar is a fine arts student at Keystone College. There,
she collaborates with members of the theater program to create
costumes for their performances. The handmade costumes on exhibit
are modern interpretations of figures from Shakespearean literature
and ancient Greek culture. Her presentation is more of a direct
manifestation of the photographs, in that they are displayed
on actual mannequins.
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