Im(perfection)
From a young age, we were brought up in a very obsessive and controlled environment, with my mum a sufferer of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) who strives for perfection in the home. My mother gets up between 4 am to 5 am every day to start her daily rituals of cooking, cleaning, and washing, which go on throughout the whole day with little respite. This experience has impacted us as adults; we have adopted some of her ways of working. Based on my experience and familiarity with the domestic domain, I have lost the ability to see it for what it is – in reality. In this work, I took myself back to being a child when everything was new and interesting to reconnect and rediscover the past and the familiar within the home and then to reflect on the impression that OCD left on all of us.
Through my family’s experience with my mother and her OCD, we have become so familiar with the objects employed to carry out domestic tasks that we have lost the ability to see them as they are. In this series, I have used scannography to investigate the domestic objects that fulfil my mothers’ life. Using the scanner I have been able to refamiliarize myself with these items as if with the eye of a child.
I have found that the objects are so visually pleasing when enlarged and removed from their everyday context. It is the simpleness of these things that makes them extraordinary and enable them to perform their regular rituals. Through these images, I have experienced the feeling my mother has and how hard she works to succeed, yet at the same time, it has become transparent how many more imperfections she creates through her cleaning. Looking at these everyday items with such intensity and magnification to such an extent has rendered them extraordinary. The abstraction has amplified their position in the world. This amplification echoes the way that OCD has been embedded in the family psyche.
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MFA Photography 
Matt Hind | Photography
