The photographer Lauren Poor can rarely be contained by the medium of photography; she builds monuments to fairy worlds, and she’s even turned her own apartment into a magical universe all its own. In her recent series Shrines, she examines the intersection of photography and fantasy, reconstructing visions from her own childhood dreams. Through the use of painting, dolls, and costuming, Poor is able to transcend the photographic and enter into a realm of girlhood imagination.
Poor’s images read like holy relics of her former self; leaving behind the often exclusive and limited pictures of beauty our adult culture embraces, she photographs her imagined fairies and then preserves them in tiny shrines, also photographed. Her imagery is evocative of everything from precious Haitian Vodun fetish objects or Yoruban sacred practices to Shakespearean fables. These fertile and scared images, like family photo albums, serve to immortalize the childhood self long after we’ve grown up.
Thanks to Feature Shoot and Matte Magazine
Images via Feature Shoot
