Sonya Naumann

The Dunce Series

2008-2017

This body of work seeks to study to surreality of the subconscious, the conversations we have with it, recordings it plays, messages it sends, and its ability to trap us in a reality that no longer subsists. In an effort to illustrate this very psychology, its living mystery, the daily impact it has, and the weight of my relationship to it, these photographs are a chain of self-portraits that are printed and re-shot through a dollar store magnifying glass to serve as an investigation into the neurobiological science of memory.

The series consists of various seriations in the narrative structure inherent to the photograph itself. The narratives are a series of episodes dynamic in content yet consistent in subject matter surrounding the character and function of The Dunce.