LOst + Found, 1991 & 2021
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In Lost + Found, photographer Barbara Cole applies her signature ability to telescope time in work that reexamines the past.
Originally taken in the 1990s on Polaroid film that no longer exists, these photographs of children around the world are reintroduced to the present. As memories are prone to altering themselves, so does Cole ever so slightly alter her work in order to imbue them with the presence of hindsight. Cole looks back at these photographs and wonders where these children are and how their lives unfolded. Through them she asks deeply personal questions: Do we idealize our memories? Were these photographs attempts to imagine parents engaging with their children in ways hers did not? Had parts of her own childhood been irrevocably lost, and, if so, what could have been different?
The idea of what could have been runs deep throughout all of Cole’s work, and becomes even more acute here as she reflects on the universality of joy, the innocence of childhood, and the enduring wish to reimagine our trajectories in life. Presented in groupings of smaller sizes akin to their original Polaroid film, Cole’s work in this series encourages us to rearrange and choose moments in life with the sort of agency rarely given to us. These reapportioned photographs are attempts to encapsulate time, to retie the knot that links one span of being to another. In doing so, Cole transforms the language of photography from momentary stillness to ongoing conversation. Perhaps this is what we find—a new understanding of ourselves—when we lose our sense of time.
All photographs available for purchase at multiple sizes. Please inquire for sizing and pricing.
