Sophie Ristelhueber

Last week some time I went to the Photographer's Gallery. In the first room there was a work from Sophie Ristelhueber's 'Vulaines' series.

In this series Ristelhueber creates diptychs of old family photographs with photographs she has herself taken in her family holiday home.

The pairing of the children peering over the gate and the secrets within the space between the two beds - the second image having being taken a few feet from the ground, at child's height- makes us reflect on what children pick up, what they see, what they're not meant to know or see, and probably that they see all these things regardless, and interpret them in their own ways- they will see what they want to see.

Ristelhueber is fascinated with scarring. I found an interview with her from Art World magazine 2009, in which she says if she hadn't lived in that house as a child, she may not be so interested in scars.

Having spent a large part of her career photographing war zones- Kuwait, Palestine... Ristelhueber says the link here between her 'Vulaines' series on memory, and her famous 'Fait' series on land scars and bomb craters is the subject matter of scarring.

I found it interesting to find some work which incorporated old family photographs- as this will be one of my main source materials. I liked the translation gained by pairing an old image with a new image.

There is a really good interview with her here, origionally from Art World Magazine, and from which I got the top portrait of Sophie Ristelhueber.

http://www.foto8.com/new/online/blog/967-sophie-ristelhueber-interviewed