Chloé Andréhn Gernandt — Correspondances #1

My work focuses on the portrayal of children, aiming to transmit the complexity of this particular period of life and more specifically to challenge the notions that we as adults tend to associate childhood with, such as innocence, carelessness and lack of personal agency. There are various embedded expectations on how children are supposed to act and behave, in alignment with the above-mentioned notions and I aim, through my work, to challenge such expectations.

Two of my selected postcards portray children smoking, an age-restricted activity that we consider harmful to children, and adults alike for that matter. Interestingly, it is not illegal for children to smoke, it is only illegal to sell tobacco to people under 18 years of age, placing the wrongdoing on the provider rather than the consumer. These two postcards have already been written, sent and stamped within Sweden and Denmark.

One of the postcards portrays a photo of a lonely boy smoking a pipe on what seems to be a boat, fixing his gaze into the camera. Although it appears as if the photo is somewhat staged, we do not know if the purpose is to provoke or to simply portray a reality. Further, the second postcard is in the format of a drawing, portraying two boys seeming to smoke more traditional cigarettes. They have a mischievous look and might be brothers, because of their physical resemblances, or perhaps only friends. The third selected postcard portrays, on the contrary, a more stereotypical way of viewing the child ; a young, blond baby splashing water in a bath on a summer day, evoking imagery associated with the garden of Eden. Above the child’s head, the words “summer = bath!” are marked in Swedish. Since this postcard had not yet been written upon, I came up with the idea of asking a random selection of people to note down the word that they associate childhood with, not necessarily their own childhood but rather childhood as a life stage and (social) construct. A total of 17 words were noted down by people of all ages and backgrounds, ranging from “freedom” to “dur (hard)”, creating a collective recollection of childhood. This was an interesting activity to ask people to carry out; some people wanted to write down numerous words, meanwhile others struggled to even find one word, finding the exercise somewhat intimate. Most words were noted down in French, with the exception of one word written in Swedish and three words in English. These three postcards all together challenge our notions of childhood, whether it be through the more unconventional activity of children smoking or through a more caricatural portrayal of a supposed innocent child splashing in a bath.

The artwork comes with a Certificate of Authenticity signed by the artist.

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