Abroad

Last week, I became acquainted with Alabaster Sinclair’s singular collection of photographs, titled “Keur-ated,” named after the brand of the coffee maker that features as the subject in all the photographs. They were taken at his hotel room while on a weekend trip and at first, I giggled at the whimsical positioning of the subjects and the puns as titles, but as I kept glancing at them, I realized just how clever the pieces are.

The first piece in the collection is “Reaching for a Lover.”

By projecting the concept of romance onto a non-human subject, romance moves beyond the realm of heteronormativity and the “lover” remains genderless, Sinclair creates an image where love is portrayed entirely outside the gender binary that dictates the romance norms that we are familiar with.

The next piece is “Morning Wake Up.”

Putting aside the connection between coffee maker (and by extension, coffee) and morning routines, the reflection of the toilet against the shower glass almost makes the toilet a secondary subject in the photograph. The fact that the toilet isn’t physically in the picture like the coffee maker is could reflect (pun intended) people’s discomfort with their own bodily functions, even though it’s a part of everyone’s morning wake up.

Thirdly is “Pressed for Time.”

This picture seems to have been taken purely for the humorous aspect, as evidenced by the pun in the title, and the positioning of the coffee maker. The substitution of a human subject for a coffee maker is most clear in this picture where it seems to “stand” over the ironing board waiting for the clothes iron to finish. My favorite part about this photograph is that Sinclair somehow managed to make the coffee maker look impatient.

The fourth photograph is “Noir.”

“Noir” draws inspiration from the Noir art movement, presenting it in a modern setting, and quite successfully in my opinion. The (lack of) lighting along with the few focal points of light, particularly the streetlight outside the window, and the bleak weather (suggested by the wet pavement outside) fits the mood and setting that exists in all Noir art pieces: a hazy night spent indoors, watching people scurry outside, hiding from the rain in their dark clothes while jazz music plays softly from a distance.

The last piece is called “Last cup of the day.”

The series ends on a grim note, and despite the obvious suicide imagery, the photograph itself is meant to be anti-consumerism. In the words of Sinclair, “consumption is the death of us all.”

-L