There are certain projects that have fascinated me for a while, and yet, I don’t know quite how to write about them. This usually happens when there is something simmering below the surface — a deeper significance that I can feel, but can’t quite calcify into words. I don’t see this as a bad thing, on the contrary, I often see it as an indication of the artist’s skill; that their series contains a level of complexity. It’s this quality that keeps me coming back- the impulse to try and unravel the mystery before me. Isabel Magowan’s series Cygnets is one of these projects.

Magowan’s subjects are teens who come from a background of privilege and wealth- the type of aspirational lifestyle that many influencers strive to project. While she begins with a group of peers who have real, pre-existing relationships (siblings, friends and couples), the scenes are a mix of staged and candid interactions. The resulting images are an intentionally indiscernible mix of fact and fiction. There is a push and pull to her photographs- I am simultaneously drawn to them and am also repelled by an underlying discomfort that they elicit. The subjects have the trappings of an enviable lifestyle, and yet they seem stuck in a dissonant loop of trying to project a particular ideal more than actually living it.

I struggled to articulate an undercurrent of this project until I binged Under the Influence, a podcast by Jo Piazza that explores the ​“Mom Internet.” She describes how the world of internet influencing has partially developed in an attempt to create a system of value and recompense for domestic work and motherhood. Influencing and ​“momstagramming” is very much about aspirational marketing, creating the yearning for an ideal, and often to creating the impression of affluence. The monetary success of an influencer is determined by how ​“shoppable” they can make their lives. Some influencers note that a byproduct of this pressure is a gradual loss in assessing their own desires. Instead, the impulse behind self presentation becomes anchored around what their followers will find more desirable.

Despite everything I have said above, my intention here isn’t to make a judgment about the cultural effects of social media. Rather, I am trying to articulate how (for me) an artist has so successfully managed to a project that evokes a very particular and nuanced emotional response. This is part of the intelligence of her work- her pictures reflect the complex, internal dilemma that many of us experience. Magowan captures the feeling I get when scrolling through my instagram feed- I don’t know what is real and what is constructed. Even though the images make me uncomfortable, they also depict an aspirational way of being. I don’t want to be like that, I don’t even want to like that. But I still can’t help but like the photo.

- Mia Dalglish

See more of Isabel Magowan’s work here.