Jessie at 7 1989

Editor: So, here we have Sally Mann's gelatin-silver print, "Jessie at 7," from 1989. There's this incredible stillness in the black and white tones. It's a portrait, but there is something unsettling about the girl's gaze that makes me uncomfortable. How do you interpret this work? Curator: Unsettling is a great word for it. Mann often plays with that tension, doesn’t she? For me, this photo is steeped in memory, not just of a child at a particular age, but of summers that stretch on forever, thick with grass and the metallic tang of something grilling nearby. Do you notice how the burger is placed so carefully? Like an offering or some clue left on the grass. Editor: Now that you mention it, the burger does feel deliberately placed. Almost staged, against the more blurry background. But there's also something quite ordinary, a fleeting moment in a casual domestic setting. The blurring does have that effect. I guess. Curator: Exactly. Mann’s work revels in that dance between the deliberate and the accidental. She is really great at presenting childhood as neither innocent nor corrupted but rather a complex tapestry woven with both. Is Jessie comfortable, awkward, performing, unaware? Yes, yes, yes and yes. A confusing symphony of everything all at once. Which is, of course, exactly what childhood is. Editor: It makes you think about the layers beneath the surface. It feels much more than a simple photograph, that's for sure. Curator: And isn't that the point, really? A photograph, or any artwork for that matter, is never just about what’s immediately visible, but all the things it invites us to imagine, to question, to remember. And the light of course. That is perfect, almost golden-hour style. Very evocative of the South, somehow. Editor: Well, that definitely changed my perspective! It's amazing how one image can hold so many layers. Curator: Indeed. It reminds me that art isn’t so much about answers as it is about enriching our way of seeing and wondering.