This Is Not Your Life
... is an altered photographic history; through manipulation of appropriated images, a forgery of the quintessential happy childhood is created.
A changeling, Martin inserts and inflicts herself into and onto these idyllic scenes, altering them irreparably. Attempting in some way to use them in a narrative re-imagining of haunting events, while ironically eroding all that is good from the scene with her disquieting presence. The time periods differ; some images are older than Martin. Moving through decades, remaining a child, she is spectral, not belonging to any time or place but always searching for a life like the ones she assumes but never quite possesses.
Captions dispassionately written in the third-person narrate the story of Martin's life actual, equal weight given to the banal and horrible; image and prose interplay as fantasy versus reality. A dark humor pervades the series, at times in the contrast of unhappy child and peaceful scene, other times in the absurd whimsy in which captions imply terrible events. Martin's deliberate irreverence makes it impossible for the viewer to feel pity for her, it becomes clear that this is how she asserts her power.
This Is Not Your Life is a confrontation of performance and a representation of an inner life, one removed from the turmoil outside but which has nevertheless become a reflection of it. Martin’s quietly brutal prose, and haunting visage effectively dismantle her crumbling Wonderland.
A changeling, Martin inserts and inflicts herself into and onto these idyllic scenes, altering them irreparably. Attempting in some way to use them in a narrative re-imagining of haunting events, while ironically eroding all that is good from the scene with her disquieting presence. The time periods differ; some images are older than Martin. Moving through decades, remaining a child, she is spectral, not belonging to any time or place but always searching for a life like the ones she assumes but never quite possesses.
Captions dispassionately written in the third-person narrate the story of Martin's life actual, equal weight given to the banal and horrible; image and prose interplay as fantasy versus reality. A dark humor pervades the series, at times in the contrast of unhappy child and peaceful scene, other times in the absurd whimsy in which captions imply terrible events. Martin's deliberate irreverence makes it impossible for the viewer to feel pity for her, it becomes clear that this is how she asserts her power.
This Is Not Your Life is a confrontation of performance and a representation of an inner life, one removed from the turmoil outside but which has nevertheless become a reflection of it. Martin’s quietly brutal prose, and haunting visage effectively dismantle her crumbling Wonderland.
