2022 - 2023 Season’s Greetings Series

Season’s Greetings is a series of digitally edited scans of 120 film negatives. Shot on a Holga “toy” camera known for its distortions ranging from blur to light leaks, Wilder peels back the overlapping layers of social constructs embedded in the Christmas holiday in the US by pairing photographs of holiday decorations with text fragments from academic journal articles. A “social construct” is a social mechanism or category developed by society that forwards perception of an individual or group that is created culturally as opposed to biologically. Social constructs include gender, race, religion, and many other groupings that strongly impact an individual’s sense of identity. These social constructs are perpetuated by how a child is raised, language and other communication practices, and visible signs including advertising, popular culture, and education. Social constructs Wilder is exploring in Season’s Greetings with regard to Christmas include aspects of capitalism, Christianity, colonialism, and gender. Many people approach the Christmas holiday in the US with compulsive, ritualized behaviors. A “ritual” is a series of actions performed in a defined sequence. While rituals are often derived from one’s culture and/or religion, Wilder’s ritual in Season’s Greetings is a personal investigation into memory, social constructs, and identity related to the holiday. Wilder uses (in)visibility and concealment as artistic strategies to create works that to varying degrees withhold information viewers may expect or desire.
© 2023 Aaron Wilder. All rights reserved.