Carolyn Mendelsohn - Being Inbetween

Wonderful and important work by Carolyn Mendelsohn. This book will no doubt be a future classic.

Published by Bluecoat Press, 2020

Condition: New & sealed

ISBN 9781908457592
Hardback
Colour 250 x 190mm
168 Pages

Being Inbetween is a series of over 90 photographic portraits of girls aged between ten and twelve, exploring the complex transition between childhood and young adulthood.

Carolyn’s experiences got her thinking about the ‘Being Inbetween’ age where one is so vulnerable to little comments, the mind so impressionable and that feeling of self-consciousness which suddenly descends from nowhere. She remembers thinking deeply about the world she lived in; those hopes and fears shaping the adult she was to become.

This is her starting point to the series – an exploration, a way of giving a voice to the girls who are at this special time in their lives; a way to explore the hidden complexity, duality and contradictions that mark it. It is a complicated and fascinating time; whilst you are being shaped in your soon to be adult form, your opinions and beliefs, hopes and fears, are emerging. There is a beauty to this age, one that is sometimes concealed in attitude,embarrassment and self-consciousness.

Girls between ten and twelve are often marketed to as ‘tweens’ and seen as a group. They become invisible as individuals.Carolyn heard some parents describing the age group as “ungainly”,“awkward” and “growing into their faces”. They are at a vulnerable stage and often hidden within the cocoon of familial protection until they emerge as young women.

The subjects in Being Inbetween were directly connected to the process; After the portrait was taken, Carolyn interviewed them with the same set of questions, and recorded the answers. These are the Inbetween girls; amazing, fearless, fearful, brave, funny, and smart individuals, getting ready to take on the world.