Sanne De Wilde’s Snow White

Flemish photographer Sanne De Wilde makes her North American exhibition debut in Peterborough with Snow White, her Albino portrait series. Constantly observed, yet unseen for who they really are, Albinos deal with stereotypes and negative connotations, De Wilde says.

She set up a temporary studio in each subject’s home to foster an environment of trust and comfort and to remove any feeling of photographic exploitation. This allowed the models “to reveal themselves fully to the camera,” De Wilde says. The exhibition at Evans Contemporary runs April 1 through May 1.

Of her subjects, De Wilde writes: “They are a metaphor, a symbol for stereotypes, they are food for the cruel curiosity of the viewer, they magnify the erroneous idea of human weaknesses and physical fragility but also of beauty. Touched by their breath-taking vulnerability, in this series, I try to create a powerful impression of this fragile white beauty.”

De Wilde is internationally known for her previous series, The Dwarf Empire, a project that saw her live with and photograph the inhabitants of an amusement park in the South-Chinese city of Kunming, where 77 little people present a song-and-dance show twice a day.  Born in Antwerp, Belgium and now based in Amsterdam, she is a Master in the Fine Arts from KASK (Royal Academy of Fine Art) in Ghent.

Sanne De Wilde’s website, here.

An interview with Vogue on De Wilde’s work, here.