Free
Photo by Shelli Weiler
Enjoy House by Shelli Weiler documents the rise and proliferation of made-for-Instagram selfie factories throughout New York and Los Angeles, presenting hostile and uninhabitable environments as forms of escapist amusement.
A cold atmosphere emerges from the accumulation of the disparate places and their visitors, all of whom become actors participating in the same theatre. This theatre consists of costumed spaces that take on the appearance of purgatories rather than playgrounds. By photographing moments of authenticity at the height of artifice, Weiler looks at the ways people manufacture themselves to conform to the props that surround and confine them.
The discovery in each picture lies in the de-contextualization of the captured activity, where the non-performance takes centre stage and expectations of glamour evaporate in the representation of desire. The formal simplicity of the greyscale attests to this symbolic power, emphasizing a generation’s inheritance of a modern empty experience.
Enjoy House by Shelli Weiler was selected by FORMAT 21 Open Call Juror – Brian Griffin, photographer and Patron of FORMAT.
