Untitled (little girl pushing doll in stroller) c. 1970

Curator: We're looking at an untitled photograph, a 5x4 inch print by C. Bennette Moore, housed here at the Harvard Art Museums. It pictures a young girl pushing a doll in a stroller. Editor: It's striking, this reversal. Like a photographic negative, but emotionally reversed too. Childhood, normally so bright, feels… haunted. Curator: Haunted? Perhaps it's the high contrast, the starkness of the light. Notice how the composition leads the eye, a diagonal from the girl's face down to the doll. Editor: Yes, and that blank-faced doll staring back—it's unsettling, almost gothic. Makes me think about play, but also the burdens we place on children, even symbolically. Curator: It’s certainly open to interpretation. What seems a simple snapshot invites deeper reflection on innocence and representation. Editor: Indeed. I came in expecting sunshine, and instead, I found something much more complex, something quite moving in its quiet darkness.