Being Inbetween is now available as a beautiful book, designed by Joe Gilmore, with a foreword by Zelda Cheatle, essay by Anne McNeill,  and  published by Bluecoat Press

To order please follow the link 

https://bluecoatpress.co.uk/product/being-inbetween/

or purchase it directly from me using the contact form.

Being Inbetween is a continually evolving series of photographic portraits of girls aged between ten and twelve, exploring the complex transition between childhood and young adulthood. The work arises from my own memories of being this age and the desire to give voice and faces to the young women who inevitably must pass through these mysterious hinterlands on their journey towards adulthood.

Girls between ten and twelve are often marketed to as ‘tweens’ and seen as a group. They become invisible as individuals. At this age, girls are bombarded with advertising and marketing, and it is vital that this marketing doesn't come to define who they are, or who they are to become. I have heard some parents describing the age group as “ungainly”, “awkward”, “growing into their faces” and into the young women they are yet to become. They are at a vulnerable stage and often hidden within the cocoon of familial protection until they emerge as young women.

When I was about eleven I recall spending a silly amount of hours in my room deciding whether to put on a pair of shorts because it was a hot day; that feeling of self-consciousness that suddenly descended from no-where. I remember thinking deeply about the world I lived in. These hopes and fears shaped the adult I was to become. At that age I had left young childhood behind and I was on the cusp of adolescence, where little comments and criticisms had a huge impact on my malleable brain. This is my starting point to the series – an exploration, a way of giving a voice to the girl I was and the girls who are; a way to explore the hidden complexity, duality and contradictions that mark this phase of life.

The majority of girls in this series were previously unknown to me, and come from diverse range of backgrounds. I invite them to come to the sitting in the outfit of their choice. It is important that they are comfortable and very much themselves during the process. After the photograph is taken, I interview them with the same set of questions, and record the answers. These are the Inbetween girls; amazing, fearless, fearful, brave, funny, and smart individuals, getting ready to take on the world.

Carolyn Mendelsohn