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Anna Cleaver
The Leftovers (2022)
Cans Still Life
Decay of the Youth 1/2
Products Still Life
Cans Still Life
1/8
For this semester long work, I chose to explore consumer awareness in its different branches. I particularly like to focus on the products of consumerism that I consider “the leftovers.” It intrigues me because it is a topic, we all know is there but still tend to not be proactive about. I incorporated distinctive styles of photography including portraiture, still lives, and a mix of both within images. This subject matter intrigues me because it is a problem that surrounds us daily, yet we tend to look away from it. This will be a work I will continue to work with and quite literally collect on. As I move forward in my teaching certificate, I would like to pull that in more beyond the slips of their responses to the recycling project I did with them. However, that was a great start, and I am excited to get more of their opinions on how we are going to save our home.
Family Collages (2021)
Memory (2021)
For this project, I asked each subject what’s an item they have that is not only important to them in a sense of who they are but holds strong memories past and present. In order to give a storytelling, feel, the final images are presented in a scrapbook form through digital collages. Scrapbooks often bring back old memories and even curate new emotions. In my opinion, you can tell a tremendous amount about a family by if they have scrapbooks because it demonstrates what kind of stories they want to tell. Each subject will have their own page that comes to life with a variety of photos and a quote related to a message from the subject and the object they picked out to be photographed with.
Peddlers Mall/Traders World (2021)
For this work, I explored consumerism by observing the overwhelming number of product produced through all the overflow that comes from it. The photos in this series are from Traders World and Peddler’s Mall, both in Lebanon Ohio. Compositionally, the objects in the frame are from hundreds of booths jam-packed and set-up by their independent sellers. Hours can be spent digging and looking through the piles of resale items or used materials that used to be personal possessions that are now seen as unwanted junk. Personally, this work was very nostalgic as I remembered items of my past and wondered where they might’ve ended up today while also thinking about the stories of the items before they were placed in these rows and rows before me.
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