Extraordinary Experiences
Photographer Morganna Magee started Extraordinary Experiences in 2020 as a way to visualise her emotions, dreams and memories. The resulting images are raw, highly personal and full of self-reflection and grief.
Photography Morganna Magee
Extraordinary experiences ( 2020 – ongoing) uses photography as a conduit for emotional interpretation of reality during a time of turmoil.
Created in the streets near where I live, on daily walks, the images depict a dark exploration of the landscape interspersed with motifs of my family and of animals both, dead and alive. The resulting images come from an intuitive response to my surroundings, the images interplay with photography’s ability to make eternal what is fleeting. Through in camera and in scanner manipulations these images exist through intervention, sometimes by the artist, others by the unseen atmosphere that surrounds what is photographed.
haunting, adjective
Definition of haunting: having qualities (such as sadness or beauty) that linger in the memory
: not easily forgotten
There are a set of psychological phenomena that can happen to the bereaved, loosely named Extraordinary Experiences. One of them is a visual apparition of or "seeing" the loved one. This work allows me to make tangible those feelings, the apparitions of emotions, memories, and dreams embed grief into the photographs. These images explore the idea of being haunted by the past, of reckoning with history, and the eternity of the natural world.
“These images explore the idea of being haunted by the past, of reckoning with history, and the eternity of the natural world.”
About Name
Morganna Magee is based in Naarm ( Melbourne, Australia) and living and working on the land of the Wurundjeri, Bunurong and Boon Wurrung people, at the foothills of the Dandenong ranges. Her practice sits between storytelling and expanded documentary, creating work that pulls from an emotional response to the world whilst still being based in the documentary tradition. She regularly is commissioned for editorial and large-scale community arts projects.
Her images have appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Guardian, The Age, Art and Australia magazine amongst others
To see more of her work, visit her website or follow her on Instagram
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