UnScene Artists
Phoebe Brown
Winner - UnScene Atlanta 2008
Phoebe Brown is an MFA student at the Ernest G. Welch School of Art and Design at Georgia State University. She began her BFA studies at Bennington College in Vermont and finished her degree in Film and Video studies at Georgia State in 2004. She hopes to graduate with her MFA degree in 2009 and currently teaches Photography at GSU and works for the Digital Arts and Entertainment Lab in GSU’s Department of Communications.
Phoebe recent work includes her documentary 99 to 1: Ovarian Cancer and Me that she shot, wrote and edited. The film chronicling Ms. Brown’s ovarian cancer diagnosis screened at the 2008 Atlanta Film Festival, is currently featured in festivals worldwide, and was chosen for the touring festival Southern Circuit showcasing outstanding independent filmmakers from the Southern United States. Her photography is influenced by her passion for the cinematic and interest in documentary.
About the Work
In the winter of 2007 I began photographing through windows of houses at night. A woman wandering the streets at night is told she’s in dangerous space: a space that shouldn’t be traveled alone. I compelled myself to confront that fear and turn it into something productive.
Walking through Atlanta’s neighborhoods I became interested in the intersection of public and private--investigating the way that we sanctify the privacy of the home but also put this space on display. Through open windows we are given glimpses of ideal homes: orderly, decorated, comfortable. But, behind this façade of catalog perfection there are stories of human imperfection. In the dark a man sits alone with his television; a family calls for help; a woman disappears. I look for these imagined real narratives—little glances in the dark—where what is revealed and what is concealed are indistinguishable.
