As a child, I used to love watching cartoons and would constantly yearn for the wild imaginative world behind the TV screen, trying to escape reality and paint a new one. As I grew up, I began noticing the details of the world I exist in, not the one I made up, and the tragedies around me. Although in a different timeline, Dorothea Lange saw it too. Her work of capturing the devastating history of the incarceration of Japanese-Americans during WW2 and the lives of migrant workers during the Great Depression was raw. It was real. Lange's photographs were unflinching; they confronted the public with harsh realities, urging people to acknowledge what had always been right in front of them.
In my artwork, I’ve placed Dorothea Lange at the center, holding her camera, to highlight how her lens served as her eyes. Through that lens, she didn’t just capture fleeting moments; she documented the truths that shaped public consciousness and inspired change. Dorothea’s lenses also lended people of all generations a look into her view of the world, offering a pair of her own eyes.
Placing Dorothea with her camera pointing directly at us in the middle imitates the experience of the people that she captured during her lifetime. But also, it gives a glimpse into the feeling of relief she provides to those she helped.
Sitting in her camera lenses is her when she was younger, hard at work. In a way, her photos also captured her own youth and growth behind the ever changing portraits of others.
