Philip Speakman

After Cottingley

engraved mirror, soot
dimensions variable

2023

​

"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."

​

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.