Iggy Smalls: Neverland

Iggy Smalls: Neverland by Daniel McCulloughOctober 14, 2017

©Iggy Smalls

Iggy Smalls‘ project Neverland investigates the ability of a photograph to present stories as truth. Through a sequence of photographs of real objects and real places, Iggy creates a fictitious place that is grounded in reality. From small, mysterious everyday moments, to larger descriptive landscapes, she encourages a direct connection with day to day experience while also leaving room for interpretation. Using colorful abstraction and straightforward observation, Iggy’s work reveals connections between things big and small, literal and curious, and allows the scenes depicted to be left to the viewer’s imagination.

Iggy Smalls is a photographer and image maker based in Barcelona with an interest in the concept of truth, reality and fiction. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Photography & Imaging from Ringling College of Art + Design in 2015 and received Adobe Rising Stars of Photography award in 2017. Iggy has had her images exhibited in Florida, Nepal, Costa Rica and Belgium and featured by Redux, Millennium Images, British Journal of Photography, AI-AP, Feature Shoot, Format, Humble Arts Foundation and Der Greif, among others.

©Iggy Smalls

Neverland

Neverland is a location invented by author Author J.M. Barry for his drama play and novels and famously known as the home of Peter Pan. Neverland and its inhabitants are often interpreted as metaphors for escapism, immortality and refusal to grow up.

This project plays with the notion of a photograph or a photographer being able to capture truth; despite objectivity on our side. Not only is a photographers presence influencing the resulting pictures but by always being forced to chose and crop, the truth may not be told in its entirety, solely through images. Audio and audiovisuals may be additional tools for objectively documenting while photos alone leave something to the imagination. This is not to deny the power of photojournalism presently (or at all in the past) – but to examine how truth might be subjective and still be true.

These photos may make you question what is staged or otherwise manipulated and what coincidentally really just happened. All photos are shot on medium format negatives.