DINNER
Photo series 2024 , Various sizes
Notes on Adulting
Stemming from concerns over socially accepted dynamics between children and adults, as well as a morbid fascination with aging, Josefin Arnell’s new body of work invites an array of influences from painterly classics, soap operas as behavioural tutorials, and extravagantly gross food In a tableau vivant starring children portrayed as adults, set in an iconic interbellum celebrity-favorite restaurant in Amsterdam – a “roaring twenties” flashback from the present –we recognise the children in the images as expressly ‘adulting’: acting out behaviors they associate with being an adult, such as being obsessed with work, time, beauty, cute dogs and money, and mirroring the stress they conceive of grownups bordering on slapstick.
An hourglass, halved artichokes, empty glasses, and shiny banquet plates of fish, are just a few of the many objects of fascination the artist found in art historical motifs of the still life and cautionary painting narratives, such as the memento mori and vanitas, that are to remind the viewer that we are, after all, but flesh. In addition, other details on the dinner table trace themes of the female coded body’s agency, like breast pumping equipment and cakes honoring Saint Agatha’s cut-off breasts. The series sets out to complicate the different temporalities of youth, aging and adulthood, and the uneasy ties between.
A psychological phenomenon called ‘adultification’ is when mature behavior is ascribed to children, oftentimes, with the expectation for them to handle adult emotions and responsibilities way before they are ready. This can hit harder for those socially marginalized, where children of certain groups are treated differently or expected to be mature beyond their age. A child can experience severe pressure to cosplay as an adult to live up to this expectation, with the risk of stunting their emotional growth or creating lifelong behavioral patterns of over-responsibility. Adultification, in short, asks children to be too grown-up, too soon.
Moreover, while we may be on our own journeys, battling childhood trauma or not, Arnell is disturbed at how the ideal role that children are commonly assigned, is one of obedience, confirmation to capitalist codes of success, and an essential inferiority to adults — never mind the international conventions of human rights declarations. Although the parental dominance in child-rearing is romanticized as one ‘for their own good’, we can wonder: how much of our treatment of children is personal, and how much is structurally truly fair?
Arnell, a filmmaker by trade, experimented with an approach to images by showing the narrative as film stills, working with stand-alone autonomous photography for the first time. As the children were set to work, the artist grew increasingly self-aware with her camera. While the kids used the freedom to interpret their roles, it became apparent that Arnell’s grim vision of how kids would portray aging — including sagging skin, expectations of dramatic plot twists, and the corruption of youth — and how she was by the very nature of this shoot adultifying children’s minds, was short-lived. In her role as director, she met with a world created by the actors, in which adults are at most 25 years old and invariably crave to become famous influencers.
This tension is intimately woven into the work’s outcome. Arnell reflects: “I’m looking for the feeling of alienation and awkwardness in group dynamics. In my film works this is often followed by confrontation and misunderstandings that lead to intense action, physical fights, splatter and gore.” As the foods and their unsubtle references are turning lukewarm under our eyes, the actual stories can start to surface. Text by Ilga Minjon
Credits
Artist: Josefin Arnell
Executive producer: Josefin Arnell and Lukas Heistinger, shadyhou.se productions
Producer: Ilga Minjon
Assistant Director: Lizzy Deacon
Light: Linus Kropp
Technical supervision: Lukas Heistinger
Children coach: Niki Milioni
Costume: Leila El Alaoui
Make up: Suzanne Breur, Romy Adams, Rosa Dres
Chef: Veniamin Kazachenko - Axe & Porridge
Intern: Yuanyuan Zhou
Advisor: Zhana Ivanova
Actors:
Sofia Chublukova
Alysa van Koulil
Sofia Raven
Nikolai Bo Theodor Galvez
Yenulya Amarasinghe