dylan haefner

pear originates from my interest in the instability between language and object, depicting how a single word can hold multiple meanings depending on its context. the project began with the pear itself, an object that carries conflicting associations across cultures. in Western traditions, the pear has often been connected to love, fertility, and rebirth. in Chinese culture, however, the pear can symbolize separation through the relationship between the word for pear, lí (梨), and the word for leaving or separation, lí (离). this linguistic connection created a cultural taboo as splitting the fruit symbolizes the separation of a relationship. these polarities shape the project, suggesting how language, culture, and personal experience continually alter the “meaning”.

the project first took the form of an installation, where enlarging photographs of "boring" images and reducing those expected to hold visual leash unsettles familiar hierarchies of looking, subjecting the viewer to an unexpected tension and allowing meaning to emerge through that relationship. near the start of this year, i wanted to shift the format more in line with a photobook, though i think of each book dummy as another installation in its own form. With every iteration, images are further stripped of their inherent context.

the project currently consists of more than 200 rotating photographs; almost all made at the minimum focus distance of the lens. no single image is intended to stand on its own. Instead, meaning shifts through the relationships between, allowing meaning to continually shift as the sequence or installation changes.