1. Stimulus

Postcards Home started with a visit to an exhibition of photography by Philip-Lorca diCorcia, A Storybook Life, at the Whitechapel.

Copyright Philip-Lorca diCorcia
Courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York and Whitechapel Art Gallery, London
For educational purposes only.

The children were particularly drawn to a photograph of several children walking arm-in-arm down a Havana street. This was part of diCorcia's sequence of pictures taken with a hidden camera and a flash over a two hour period called 'Two Hours'.

Copyright Philip-Lorca diCorcia
Courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York and Whitechapel Art Gallery, London
For educational purposes only.

DiCorcia shares a concern within the context of the conceptual tradition, with the 'constructed photograph' and the work of artist photographers such as Jeff Wall and Cindy Sherman.

At the same time as the diCorcia exhibition at the Whitechapel there was an exhibition of the work of Cindy Sherman at the Serpentine Gallery in London's Hyde Park. Sherman makes fictional images of herself, dressing up and using lighting and make-up to construct artificial images of femininity. These draw on a wide range of cultural genres from the B-movie to the murder mystery, fashion photography and history portraits. A selection of these were installed in the Gloucester Road Underground station during the time of the exhibition at the Serpentine.

Laurie Long's own work also shares a conceptual and sometimes 'constructed' approach to photography. During the Postcards Home project the children were introduced in various ways to two key series, from her early career Becoming Nancy Drew and her current project The Secret History of Goddess Sites.