A world without “when I was your age it was different,” without “the youth of today are worthless,” a world in which therefore there is no “adultsplanning” and children seem to be able to do everything in total autonomy.
This is the landscape depicted in photography by Julie Blackmon, an American artist associated with family issues and small-town life.
The shots are social satire disguised within everyday scenes in which children are the real protagonists, not to say the only ones. All the details depicted are symbolic, as is the arrangement of the subjects, inspired by scenes painted by 17th-century Flemish painters.
Julie Blackmon’s goal is to represent the context of small American communities, tracing the dreams promoted by the American model.

One characteristic of Julie Blackmon’s children is their total detachment from anything related to contemporary technology. Thus they can be found playing “like in the old days,” painting the driveway with chalk, or in the handcrafted swimming pool in their own backyard.
Of inspiration for the photographer’s vision is the context of large families, being herself the eldest of nine siblings. In doing so she traces memories and what more generally influences childhood, made up of landscapes and elements that shape the way we think even as adults, those that Julie does not want to represent, deliberately leaving the feeling of a world in which everything is disconnected.