Untitled (girl in headdress and uniform with baton, reaching up) 1950

Curator: This is an untitled photograph by John Deusing, currently held in the Harvard Art Museums. It presents a girl in a headdress and uniform, reaching up with a baton. Editor: There's an unsettling starkness to it, almost dreamlike with the way the girl seems suspended in this bright, undefined space. Curator: It’s a gelatin silver print. What strikes me is the performative aspect, the social coding present in the costume and gesture. Editor: Absolutely. It feels loaded, like a captured moment from a play or parade—yet, stripped of context. It evokes feelings of identity and maybe a touch of displacement. Curator: Considering photographic processes and the social history around representations of identity, this image leaves a lasting impression, doesn't it? Editor: It certainly does. It’s a powerful distillation of culture and pose, even with its ambiguities.