Cereals

As a child, Saturday morning cartoons are a way of life. That morning is perhaps the first truly self-prescribed ritualistic experience in one’s childhood. There’s the anticipation of waking up early before anyone else in the house is awake, eagerly awaiting the time that the parents determined was permissible to begin watching cartoons, sitting way too close to the television for hours, being completely absorbed by the shows being watched and knowing exactly which shows are on and when and on which channel. The added bonus was getting to eat a bowl of sugar in the morning in the form of children’s breakfast cereals.

The ritualism is even more heightened with the cereals: knowing exactly how high to fill the bowl without spilling milk on the carpet when it’s carried back to the television, the precise way of eating it to ensure the proper amount of crunch and sogginess throughout the whole eating process, knowing exactly where to pour on more sugar, and how much (if necessary).

This series of photographs of popular breakfast cereals, named Cereals, are an homage to this childhood ritual and can serve both as a pleasant memory of these experiences and as a alarming reminder of what it is that we were eating as children – essentially a noxious combination of sugar and grains.

When these individually isolated cereals are blown-up to a size much larger than life, the textures, the production quality and the similarities that run through all of these cereals become visible. It’s a casual reminder of some of our most pleasant childhood memories, but also that some things are best left to childhood.

This project was photographed in 2013. All prints are available for purchase. For sizes, pricing or more information, please contact me.