2016 Imaginary Friends Series

Memory, like technology, obsolesces. Like the eager anticipation of the newest smartphone, compulsive human motion and consumption ultimately lead to the hastening of our physical, cultural, and social deterioration. As time passes, objects and photographs slowly replace our connection to feelings held by our younger selves. Imaginary Friends is a series of black and white 35mm film photograph triptychs that jumble distinctions of affect associated with past, present, and future. Seeking neither nostalgia nor suppression of memory, this project questions notions of authenticity, subjectivity, and truthfulness in how we relate to and simultaneously distance ourselves from childhood joys and traumas.

© 2021 Aaron Wilder. All rights reserved.