Make Believe

“Make Believe” presents an enchanted realm where sleeping figures float, women weave spiderwebs, magicians cause children to disappear, and homemade dirigibles fly over icebergs. The exhibition brings together five artists who stage fantastical scenes for the camera to address a wide range of social and cultural issues, including the role of women in the Middle East, climate change, the passage from childhood to adolescence, and existential fears of loneliness and loss.

Shadi Ghadirian (Iranian, b. 1974) and Hellen van Meene (Dutch, b. 1972) draw on folk and fairy tales to interrogate real-world concerns of being and becoming. Ghadirian questions preconceived ideas about female identity and agency in the Muslim world through works like Miss Butterfly, a series of black-and-white photographs based on an early Persian folk tale. Van Meene focuses on adolescent girls on the cusp of adulthood, seeking to capture the rich interior lives of her sitters while also suggesting the anxiety and confusion commonly experienced during teenage years. Inspired by works such as Rapunzel by the Brothers Grimm, The Princess and the Pea by Hans Christian Andersen, and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, she often poses her subjects in Vermeer-like natural light, as in Untitled #465 (2014), pictured above.