The photographs represent aspects of Joanna’s installation practice in progress. Her work often confronts art historical tropes which still resonate in the art establishment today. After reading Walter Benjamin’s essay ‘A short history of photography,’ she became conscious while taking the photograph of how the chair and hair image took on another narrative. According to Benjamin, owing to the arduous nature of the photographic process in its early stages, adopting practical accessories such as knee supports, headrests, and furniture was a necessity for the wellbeing of the sitters. Often these elaborate accoutrements seen as appropriate in the context of paintings were thought of as incongruous pretension in the photograph. A typical example of the inclusion of these artistic embellishments of that era was the floating pillar without foundation perched needlessly on a carpet and in the case of Joanna’s photograph the opulent parlour chair hovering without context in the black void. It’s as if the sitter, bored, has absented themselves from the image, leaving behind matted Rapunzel style tresses as a mark of protest against the excessive time they have wasted as the subject under photographic scrutiny. The discarded hair is uncharacteristically unkempt, ossified and cancerous; a far remove from the immaculate and obedient portrait subjects of the classic early photographs and indeed in spite of the immediacy of the digital invention the pressure for perfection is an ever-burgeoning preoccupation.