'twas only a balloon

Larry Sultan and Mike Mandel’s book Evidence is very influential in my work. It wasn’t until I was introduced to Evidence as an undergrad, that I thought about the how the sequencing of images can transform the meaning of a body of work. ‘Twas Only a Balloon is comprised of materials found in the public domain: a poem by Emily Dickinson published in 1863 and images from the Library of Congress acquired by searching the word “balloon” in their online database. The balloon in Dickinson’s poem is a metaphor for how society changes its view of a woman’s value as she ages.

In the first stanza, an admiring crowd gazes upon the soaring balloon. In the following stanzas, the balloon slowly descends toward its eventual death while the increasingly disinterested crowd looks away. Dickinson ends her poem “‘Twas only a Balloon” as if to say there is no reason for sadness as the crowd did not lose anything of value. The images of various balloons (party balloons, parade balloons, hotair balloons, military balloons and weather balloons) in their sequencing and proximity to the poem’s five stanzas are transformed into a narrative about multiple roles played by women and their perceived value within society.

The visual narrative also evokes the film The Red Balloon (1956) by Albert Lamorisse, starring an admired anthropomorphized balloon that expires at the end of the story.

All images and text are in the Public Domain.
 
You’ve seen Balloons set — Haven’t You?
written by Emily Dickinson, 1863.
 
All images courtesy of
Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress.