https://terryownby.wordpress.com/category/wunderkammer/ Dropbox: Photographing_the_Wunderkammer_A_Persona.pdf https://www.dropbox.com/s/i1euc41yxozwr29/Photographing_the_Wunderkammer_A_Persona.pdf?dl=0 On my web-blog, I state: 'Inspiration comes to creatives using vari- ous guises'. Here I was referring to the concept of remaining open to creative inputs that might come unexpectedly. Such was the case on a late winter's afternoon when the initial creative impetus for the Wunderkammer project presented itself to me through a cup of Tazo brand organic chai tea. After teaching my morning classes at the university and spending my early afternoon working on class assignments, I needed a break and brewed a cup of chai tea. As I sat in my study with warm sunlight streaming across my desk from the winter sun sitting low on the southern horizon, I dipped the tea bag in my cup of steaming water, holding it by the paper tag attached by a string to the sachet. This paper tag was finely crafted as though it were an old scientific specimen label, and I found this characteristic to be fascinating. It appealed to the designer in me, since part of my undergraduate work included graphic design studies. My captivation with that tea bag label proved to be a de- fining moment within my personal creative process that would eventuate as part of a public photographic exhibition.

Some months later near the end of the academic year, I came across a still-life photograph titled Icône 1 that incorporated what appeared to be a scientific specimen case within its composition. This photograph was created by a French/Belgian photographic duo called Parallax(e). Their image was simple: a bottle of water, some onions and fruit in a bowl, and behind, some cutlery framed in display cases. It was the display cases that caught my eye in that incipient moment. This image excited me and stirred my creative thought processes a second time, which caused me to remember the Tazo tea bag label. I associated the scientific-looking tea bag label with the scientific display case, as they seemed visually to be a natural fit. Thus, the specimen labels and display cases came together as small vignettes of my life, reminiscent of my scientific and technologi- cally driven childhood of the mid-twentieth century.

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In my body of work, Wunderkammer: Specimen Views of my Postmodern Life, I explored societal ideological influences on my own development of self-identity and acculturation through the photographic representation of personal objects. Beginning with my childhood in the American South during the 1960s, which was heavily influenced by scientific and technological ideologies, I created images that reframed my personal Wunderkammer in order to illustrate my life’s journey and corresponding sense of personal identity. Finding all those boxes of personal artefacts packed away for years in my parents’ home, for example, helped me to rediscover the important role science and technology played in my early life, my early artmaking and ultimately the Wunderkammer series itself. This process gave me a heightened sense of my personal identity within particular geographical spaces and time periods.