Untitled (little girl with stuffed animal) c. 1950

Curator: The Harvard Art Museums hold this photographic negative by Lucian and Mary Brown, titled simply, "Untitled (little girl with stuffed animal)." Editor: It's haunting. That reversal of light and shadow—there's an unsettling feeling of otherworldliness to it. Curator: Indeed. The reversed tonality casts common symbols of childhood—the doll, the bassinet—in a strange light. What do those symbols evoke for you? Editor: Vulnerability, obviously. But also the construction of identity. The child's grasp on that toy; it speaks to the stories we tell ourselves from a young age, and how those stories are shaped by our surroundings. Curator: And the photograph itself, a fleeting moment captured, then flipped. It's an interesting commentary on permanence and change. Editor: Ultimately, it becomes a political statement about the precariousness of childhood itself. A reminder that innocence is easily inverted. Curator: An inversion indeed. It has given me a lot to consider. Editor: Me too, that light really hits differently.