In my ongoing series, In the Garden, I situate my husband and two teenage sons within imaginary frames of possibility. What does it feel like for those who identify as boys and men to have only been given one story? I see them grow into something new, a hybrid I look for in the garden. Here, old ideas of patriarchy give way to more generative forces, which complicate notions of gender and identity, individualism and connectedness. Scenes of transformation, fragility, and impermanence in the natural world come to mirror their own stages in life as they negotiate youth and middle age in a shifting cultural landscape. Inspired by art history, fairytales, and myth, I ask them to enact a kind of mock theatre, reimagining cultural mythologies from the past and exploring new stories as they emerge. And I come to see this journey as my own, a hybrid recognition of what it means to be human.

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About

Allison Plass is a Fine Art photographer living in NYC. She received her MA in Art History at UC Santa Barbara, where she explored issues of gender and representation in European Art. She completed the Advanced Track Program at the International Center of Photography in New York in 2020. Her photographic practice is influenced by Western art history, the natural world, and the intersection of cultural myths and stories we carry about our own lives. She has received numerous awards and has been featured in solo, group, and juried exhibitions in the US, Europe, and Asia.