Baby Show: A Show of Babies is a collaborative series between Chloe Wack and Landin Eldridge.
The work was exhibited at Gallery 1010 on April 1-2, 2022.
What can you tell about a person from their baby photos, can you detect hints of their future personality or when and where they grew up? How does your relationship to a person expand when you see what they used to look like long before you first knew them? These were questions we sought to answer when we began creating the Baby Show. Pulling from overlaps and differences in our individual practices, we envisioned a collaboration that would represent the current MFA cohort at University of Tennessee Knoxville through the medium of translated baby photos. We created 33 pairs of prints and drawings that depicted students, siblings, partners, (and one second generation baby!) that make up the found family of this specific program and this specific time.
The exhibition featured pairings of an unframed cut out drawing and a framed 8x10 screen print, each inspired by the same baby photo but translated differently through our individual processes. Landin’s drawings were cut from 18x24 mixed media paper and combined ink, graphite, marker, and pastel in a black and white color palette. Chloe’s screen prints used 3-5 layers per print and a limited color palette throughout all the prints that unified the exhibit.
During the opening, we encouraged our participants to dress up as they appeared in their baby photos, with several folks even bringing the same objects they held in their original photos. In the spirit of “cutest baby” contests and “best in show” awards, we also held an awards ceremony. Judged by three guest faculty members, the awards of “Most up to no good” or “Stinkiest diaper” were handed out to a select few participants.
Landin and Chloe presented “Baby Show” at the annual SECAC Conference in Baltimore, MD in October, 2022 on the panel “Family Photographs as Art Medium.”
Documentation from the exhibition, featuring photos of our participants and their baby artwork:
