by Carolyn Mendelsohn | Sugar Store Gallery | Free
“Being Inbetween” is an acclaimed photographic series of portraits with recorded interviews of girls aged between ten and twelve, exploring the complex transition between childhood and young adulthood. Carolyn Mendelsohn has been working on the evolving work for over four years and it arises from her own memories of being this age and the desire to give voice and faces to the young women who inevitably must pass through these mysterious hinterlands on their journey towards adulthood.
The incorporated soundscape has been created by using some of the interviews and weaving them in and out of ambient sound edited and composed by Graham Coatman.
Zelda Cheatle says of the series. “I loved the curiosity and sincerity that Carolyn has shown towards this strange age, neither a child nor a teenager. Her portraits place them as individuals and she has given them a voice too. I was astonished by how composed she had made them, it’s a great skill to relax your sitter and show their best side. Instead of awkwardness, there is grace.”
“Beautifully produced and printed, slightly larger than life and hung at eye level, the individual gaze of each girl never averts, never looks away.
These are girls journeying into adulthood, standing here at a precipice and on the point of no return. The portraits, with their quotes of aspirations for lives full of meaning, are full of hope.” Casey Orr.
Being Inbetween the book will be published later this year by Bluecoat Press and is being launched as a kickstarter in May.
Carolyn is the winner of the Royal Photographic Society International Photography Exhibition 159, and Portrait of Britain. She is based in Yorkshire and her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally.
You can see more of the series on Instagram @being.inbetween
https://carolyn-mendelsohn.format.com/
