I have utilised a holiday photograph that belonged to strangers for the purpose of this task. I think what interests me the most about this form of appropriation is how personal photographs of this vein are. This personal aspect is something that I can appreciate, and yet not fully understand as I don’t have any connections to the original image myself. I see my perception of the value of these photograph to be distorted, and so I wanted to distort the original image as much as possible while still maintaining the original image itself. As I’m interested in process, it made sense to me to document the distortion process, creating a series of images that documents this.
This use of other people’s photographs was very much inspired by the work of Richard Prince, in which he exhibited strangers Instagram posts without their permission. This task allowed me to explore notions regarding how we define art in relation to ownership of material, which was thought-provoking. I believe questions regarding appropriation hold diverse, subjective answers. Nevertheless, the conversation of appropriation is a very important one that artists should continue to consider.