Currently open at Galerie Principale within the United Arts of Second Life hub, is an exhibition of pieces by Melusina Parkin, showcasing her minimalist approach to telling stories through her photography.
A Minimal Gaze is not a retrospective in the strictest sense of the word, but it does contain some images that admirers of Melu’s work may well recognise. What it does present is a rich cross-section of Melu’s style, something which might be called “moments in solitude”, whereby she focus on aspects of scene within Second Life and presents a image with a single cynosure, drawing our attention to that focus alone.
Thus, the focal point stands in solitude in terms of their in-world surroundings, the framing of the image, and its ability to hold our attention. However, at the same time, a much broader narrative canvas is presented by the background and what lies just outside the frame of the picture; things not seen, but which nevertheless whisper to our imaginations. This gives Melu’s work a sense of unique individuality: the familiar seen without broader context other than what is suggested by the mind’s eye.
It’s an approach that Melu has used throughout the majority of her more than 10 years of Second Life photography, and which I’ve never ceased to appreciate, both for the above expressiveness and for the way it causes us to look at Second Life itself in a new way, bringing this digital world to life in a most unique and singular manner, unmatched by more “traditional” forms of photography (very much including my own) which provide broader, more contextualised views of the places visited and recorded within them.
In the notes she provides for the exhibition, Melu notes that she is currently experimenting (like so many) with AI-generated images – but that also, she is not deserting this approach to her photography. It’s an assurance I appreciate, as a Second Life without her unique insight to its many faces and places would, frankly, be a diminished world.
Surl Details
- A Minimal Gaze, UASL (Karpov, rated Moderate)
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 
Overwhelmed by a complicate RL move and by the setting of the new home, I couldn’t properly enjoy this great reviw… Thank you, Inara!
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Thank you, Melu! Feedback is always welcome – but the demands of the physical world should always come first! <3. Hope the move went well, and that you are settling in to the new home!
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