Clare Strand’s Conjurations consists of four moving-image works presented on separate monitors, each showing a young woman performing a simple, shop-bought children’s magic trick. The short sequences are looped repeatedly, transforming these small acts of illusion into hypnotic “moving photographs.”
The works draw on the early experiments of Georges Méliès, who used his background as a stage magician to explore cinema as a medium of transformation, deception, and wonder. By isolating and endlessly repeating these modest performances, Strand highlights the relationship between photography, film, and the act of creating belief.
Even though we know trickery is at play, these films are curiously ambiguous and question the boundary between reality and illusion, dazzle and decoy.
