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The Fauna of Mirrors,
4k video,
seamless loop (02:38),
2023
Philip Speakman
After Cottingley
engraved mirror, soot
dimensions variable
2023
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"I never even thought of it as being a fraud – it was just Elsie and I having a bit of fun and I can't understand to this day why they were taken in – they wanted to be taken in."
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Mirror engraved with the image which young girls Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths likely based their 1917 fairy photos on, a pre-internet viral hoax which took on a life of its own, fooling many including Arthur Conan Doyle and used as evidence by Theosophists later on. Made in a 9:16 aspect ratio using smoke and mirrors.
Exhibited at Slade Graduate Degree Show 2023.
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