Kitty Pearson
BA (Hons) Photography
Dis.connect
Kitty Pearson has used her recent photographic practice as a tool to communicate raw thoughts, emotions and processes in ways words never have, this unit is an opportunity to portray a subject matter she needs to express to make sense of the world for her.
She has used documentary photography elements and black & white darkroom developing to demonstrate personal narratives and experiences. Her current work explores themes of miscommunication, mental health with ideas of connection and disconnection intertwining. Kitty focuses on how those particular aspects affect certain situations in neurodiverse people's lives. Each image showcases a focused area, whether it's in a fairly obvious way such as literal disconnection of hair being cut from someone's head, or adopting more subtle and abstract themes for the viewer to have their own interpretation. To fully emulate different sensory elements of a narrative, Kitty has also created a soundscape-esque piece to go alongside her images - important things being said clearly but not being received by the ‘listener’. She has taken into account the power sound can have to explain parts of a story in ways images may not reach.
Kitty reflects: “I wanted to find an effective way to give an insight of the feelings and responses neurodiverse people have in situations in which they may feel out of control, lose awareness, or start to feel disconnected from their surroundings. I thought about how any other creative decisions I made would help carry the overall narrative of my images, such as the order of the photographs and how headphones can also be a way for the viewer to feel part of the subject matter.”
In the future, Kitty hopes to pursue documentary photography as a career path, combining her love of music and art, focusing on her true passion for gig/band photography.
