Untitled (children playing dress-up and walking baby carraige on sidewalk) c. 1950

Editor: This untitled photograph by Jack Gould captures children in dress-up, pushing a baby carriage. It's a small work, but the negative image gives it such a ghostly and unsettling feel. How do you interpret this work, especially given its unusual presentation? Curator: The negative format certainly alters our perception. Consider how photographic negatives were once a necessary step, hidden from public view, in creating an image. The choice to present it this way highlights the constructed nature of photography itself, doesn’t it? Editor: It does. It makes me think about how childhood itself is often romanticized or filtered. Curator: Exactly. This negative could be a commentary on the performative aspects of childhood and the roles children are taught to play, viewed through the lens of societal expectations. What do you think Gould is trying to say? Editor: That’s a perspective I hadn't considered. I was focused on the strangeness of the image itself. Curator: Precisely, and that strangeness is culturally produced, isn’t it? It makes us question the very act of representation. Editor: It does. Seeing art as embedded in cultural practices makes art so much more powerful.