One of the childhood books I grew up that I’ve found revisiting as an adult is The Giving Tree, by Shel Silverstein. As a fun photo narrative project, I decided to recreate this story using found objects to re-illustrate this classic tale.
A little peak behind the scenes
This first started off because I was fond of the idea of creating a physical book about a book itself, so began prototyping concepts around the idea of favorite childhood books. I began by gathering photos of my subjects with their favorite books, children and adults alike.
Next, I tried placing my subjects into their favorite childhood books. My subjects were ecstatic to relive parts of their childhood - they’d always wanted to escape inside their favorite children's book!
Dr. Seuss - All the Places You'll Go!
Where the Wild Things Are
With multiple different stories weaved into one book, it was hard to maintain a cohesive narrative.
Final Iteration
At this point, I decided instead to focus my efforts on one book as a channel to explore some concepts that interested me- time, change, and memory. I delved into the classic childhood book, The Giving Tree, by Shel Silverstein.
Through the placement of artifacts, the book conceptualizes a few universal themes of growing up- exploration, validation, loneliness.
Happy browsing down memory lane 😊