Tania Franco-Klein (b.1990) started her photography praxis while studying Architecture in Mexico City, which took her to pursue a Masters in Photography at University of the Arts London. Her practice is highly influenced by her fascination with social behavior and contemporary practices such as leisure, consumption, media overstimulation, eternal youth and the influence of the American dream in the Western world. Her narrative carries an ambiguity which encourages the viewer to apply their own story and interpretation, and hopefully, something about our modern-day dual identities. Franco-Klein’s work has been reviewed by international critique including Aperture Foundation, The British Journal of Photography, Fisheye Magazine, The Best of Photo Vogue (IT), among others. She has exhibited in London, Budapest, New York, Mexico, Photo Basel, Slideluck Editorial in Les Rencontres d’Arles and during the Los Angeles Month of Photography 2017. She recently obtained the Sony World Photography Awards (National Award), Lensculture Exposure Awards, among others.
Our Life In The Shadows
Influenced by the pursuit of the American Dream lifestyle and contemporary practices such as leisure, consumption, media overstimulation, eternal youth, and the psychological sequels they generate in our everyday private life. The project seeks to evoke a mood of isolation, desperation, vanishing, and anxiety, through fragmented images, that exist both in a fictional way and a real one.
Philosopher Byung-Chul Han says we live in an era of exhaustion and fatigue, caused by an incessant compulsion to perform. We have left behind the immunological era, and now experience the neuronal era characterized by neuropsychiatric diseases such as depression, attention deficit, hyperactivity disorder, burnout syndrome and bipolar disorder.
The constant need to escape, to always look outside. My characters find themselves almost anonymous, melting in places, vanishing into them, constantly looking for any possibility of escape. They find themselves alone, desperate and exhausted. Constantly in an odd line between trying and feeling defeated.
To view more of Tania’s work please visit her website.