The fairy tales popularized by Disney were such happy narratives, but I fancied the sinister gems that inspired these modern counterfeits. In these earlier vocal stories, Little Red cannibalized Grandma alongside the Wolf before being devoured, Sleeping Beauty was raped and impregnated by the Prince while in her coma, and Repunzel was seduced by an adulterous and uxoricidal king.
This matter-of-fact violence could not be captured by representation, but instead only by essence. In these photographs, mood dominated role-play. “At Grandma’s” projected a predatory essence before revealing the narrative. “In Beauty’s Bedroom” gave the atmosphere of a musty brothel. “Below the Tower” suggested a larger, sinister environment before identifying the characters. Because the materials were not direct representations (toy soldier representing the Prince), the photographs became mercurial and spoke about many scenarios simultaneously. The use of found objects provided a familiarity that, in the context of the lighting and scene, was at once difficult to place and strangely appropriate, because they were chosen for their material properties and history. For example, the “wolf” was crumpled sandpaper, which was materialistically rough, harsh, and associated with eating into wood. Similarly, the “Prince” was a used moldy sponge and the “king” was literally a tool. Although it usually took two images to tell a narrative, these single photographs conveyed a backstory—a cause that led up to these situations—because they were not locked down by strict representation and were free to imply a bigger world with separate inner workings.
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