statement by the artist


The Dream Collector (1972)

»DAYMARES« is a series of photographs that attempts to interpret the dreams
and fantasies of young children through the medium of documentary photo-
graphy. Dreams or nightmares were collected by conversations with children
in schools, streets, or neighbourhood playgrounds. The children would be
asked means of acting out their visions or to suggest ways of making them
into visual actualities. Often the location itself, such as an automobile grave-
yard or abandoned merry-go-round, would provide the possibility of dreamlike
themes and spontaneous improvisation to the photographer and his subjects.
In recreating these fantasies there is often a combination of actual dream,
mythical archetypes, fairytale, horror movie, comic hook, and imaginative play.
These inventions often reflect the child's inner life, his hopes and fears, as
well as his symbolic transmutation of the external environment, his home or
school, into manageable forms (...)

The purpose of these dream photographs is to show how the child's creative
imagination is constantly transforming his existence into magical symbols for
unexpressed states of feeling or being. In fact, we are all always interchanging
or translating our daily perceptions of reality into the enchanted sphere of the
dream world.


[Excerpt from press release for »Daymares« exhibition, Raffii Photo Gallery,
New York City, 3 May - 2 June 1972]



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