She Ate The Tablecloth

Plastic tablecloths are perhaps unlikely ground for a piece of fashion photography and perhaps might be more likely to be found in a Martin Parr tongue-poke than a show about haut couture. We might feel a fondness for their vibrancy, for their durability, for their cleanability. But we might also think of them as all surface and no substance, of being unvoiced and unloved, of being loud and yet remarkably silent. Of them being ubiquitous and yet unnoticed, the faithful workhorse whose tireless efforts keep us clean and healthy. Not to mention happy.

It is quite suitable then that the unsung heroine of Blumenkron’s project should remain modestly in the background. Modestly did I say? But she proclaims her talents and her vibrancy at the top of her lungs. She peers over the shoulder of the foreground, grabbing the limelight, diverting the innocent viewer’s attention, eloquently saying in her muted way “Look at me, not at her!” But in truth that overshadowed foreground is in cahoots with her friend the lively background. “Yes look at her. She barges her way in here and cannot be ignored. But you will always return to me!” And the buffeted viewer is pulled one way and the other, and debates with herself the relative merits of each, perhaps interjecting her own argument amongst the other two. Three graces, then, battling it out for pole position.

But the only one in the whole scenario who really remains a silent, amused and knowing observer is the photographer.

This work was laureate by Dior Photography Awards for Young Talents 2019

Ana Blumenkron was born and raised in Mexico. Vibrancy and spice are in her blood. Having worked as a freelance photographer in Mexico for the last 7 years with clients such as Netflix and Unsettled Magazine she decided to take herself to Europe to engage in an MA in Photojournalism at London College of Communication.

So are her photographs’ Photojournalism? In a sense yes. They are a documentation of a place and a time and of an issue that has been with us since Adam and Eve. And one might ask a similar question of a totally different genre. “But aren’t they fashion photographs?” to which the answer might be a similar piece of fence-sitting “In a sense no but…” and for similar reasons. But the truth is that in the last 20 years or so those artificial borders in photography have mercifully had their barbwire snipped and we are free to wander about without let or hinderance from kingdom to kingdom. At least for the time being.

Blumenkron worked with an exclusively female team to produce this series. And you can see why this was important. Like the tablecloths the images are eloquent but don’t give up their secrets easily. One thing is certain though: the discourse revolves around women and the modern world.

Words: Jason Shenai