‘Picture Day: flip side’ is a documentation of an elementary school’s Picture Day, a day in every academic year on which schools invite a photographer for their students to be professionally photographed. Traditionally, these portraits are most commonly distributed and shared among families and friends. The idea for this project itself spawned from my experience as a mother volunteering at the picture day of my daughter’s school more than a decade ago.

What actually happens in between an individual kid’s coming-and-going in an effort to leave a proof of happiness? ‘Picture Day: flip side’ portrays the physical and mental sides of each child’s being when being forced to be photographed with happy faces; the interrelationship between self and society, portrayed through the vulnerability a child has to go through to present an unsustainably simplified and standardized happiness; and the fabrication and manipulation involved in chronicling the traditional keepsakes of happy-faced family histories.

 
1st group of pictures : PS.212, nyc, NY
2nd group of pictures : Taos Pueblo School, Taos, NM

 
excerpt:

running time: 3min 45sec
original format: HDV
projection format: HDV
sound