A real eye opener: Vivian Maier’s photography

Abstract

Vivian Maier’s street photography shows us a sudden transfiguration of reality, by which persons, scenes and things become faerical (neologism that also receives one of the senses of the French féerie, a play where supernatural, or, in this case, also infranatural creatures appear). We propose that this transfiguration is an apparition – a faerical epiphany (always earthy and fleshy) that follows two ways, one sunny and luminous, the other obscure and subterranean. We will examine Maier’s body, reflected in her self-portraits in order to propose that her sight (therefore her photography) is a daimonic one, an intermediary between our and other worlds.