Blueprints, our home is the reflection of ourselves

• Prize
  Silver in Fine Art/Abstract, Bronze in Fine Art/Collage
• Photographer
  Joana P. Cardozo

A silent piano, high heels in the walking-in closet, faded dead flowers still releasing a sweet smell, toys fighting each other in the basement, incense, lace and Saints. ​ My series Blueprints gravitate towards the notion that our home is the reflection of ourselves. Instead of conventional photographic portraiture, I reveal the personalities of my subjects by depicting the contents of their homes. ​ Like a mirror, a home reflects the identity of their inhabitants. The way the content of a house is arranged reveals, in a whisper, whether the person is organized, chaotic, romantic, divorced; everything I imagine to know. I enter. I pick objects. I remove them from their places. I place them in front of a light source. I create a new object. I put the object back. The shadow is gone. ​ The final images resemble architectural floor plans; however, Blueprints are in fact an unusual form of portrait. While these portraits do not depict my subject’s faces, hands, or likenesses, they are a reflection of each person, a reverse projection, a negative of the original. It is like reading their biography, but from the outside in.