Allow children to be happy in their own way, for what better way will they ever find?
Samuel Johnson [1780]
My series entitled “The Shrinking Horizons of Childhood” is a personal project that examined how much time our children spend indoors.
As a parent, teacher and artist I am conscious of how we bring our adult ideas of how children should be, control their activities and over schedule their lives to the extent that their is little time for children to be themselves, in short we don’t trust children.We keep them “safe” in their glass boxes like exotic birds from the rain forest.
In short what interests me is what is going on “inside” inside the house, inside the mind of the child, the potential inside the child or student.
To this end I was conscious to make work that avoided the cliched imagery of children depicted in lifestyle campaigns or the harrowing looks of children in charity advertising.
I refused to use artificial lighting instead contrasting the fact that the children were inside
while it was sunny outside and deliberately using the reflections of nature on the windows
bringing nature indoors and playing with the idea of fear of nature outside.
Some of my favorite films involve children, Picnic at Hanging Rock(1975), a Russian film
The Return(2003) and Rabbit Proof Fence(2002).
Mike O’Toole’s interest lies in using photography to comment about the shrinking horizons of childhood.
In this series children are the subjects of his voyeuristic observations or willing participants in some kind of performance.
Part social commentary, part fiction, part autobiography, O’Toole’s work plays with the underlying tension and the culture of fear that surrounds childhood. “Never have children been more restrained and watched-over than today” says O’Toole.
Photographed with a medium format film camera using ambient light and an aesthetic feel that enhances the concept, the artist then creates his large 30"x40" c-type prints.
As a father himself he is aware that children need unstructured time away from adults, as an important part of growing up engaged, self confident and resilient people.
