Untitled (two women wearing hats standing and drinking tea) c. 1950

Editor: This photograph, "Untitled (two women wearing hats standing and drinking tea)," by Jack Gould, shows two women elegantly dressed. There's a sense of poised domesticity here. What symbols do you see at play in this image? Curator: The hats, the tea service, the portraits in the background… they all speak to rituals of social identity and aspiration. Notice how the inversion of light and shadow throws the figures into stark relief, enhancing the sense of both presence and otherness. These everyday objects and activities are rendered surreal. Editor: Surreal, how so? Curator: The photograph's manipulation transforms familiar signifiers of middle-class life into something uncanny. The image evokes cultural memory of social interactions and domesticity in the first half of the 20th century, yet challenges our easy access to that past. Editor: It’s amazing how a simple inversion can change the emotional weight of an image.