Themes and Concepts

 Fig. 1: Papapetrou's Olympia as Lewis Carroll's Xie Kitchin as Chinaman (off duty)

It's clear from looking at Olympia as Lewis Carroll's Xie Kitchin as Chinaman (off duty) that it needs to be looked at in a series rather than just by itself as this assignment requests. I visited Geelong Gallery a few months ago where the image was on display. It was presented in a large, old fashioned room with a number of other artworks that were included in the gallery's collection for that time. Personally, I felt that it wasn't the right surroundings for such a bright, modern-looking photo. I think perhaps if it was with the rest of the series Dreamchild it would be more clear to the audience what Papapetrou was trying to convey when she created it.

As a single artwork, Olympia as Lewis Carroll's Xie Kitchin at Chinaman (off duty) doesn't have extremely direct themes, other than the obvious play on childhood fantasy mixed with the adult world. The pose, costuming and setting are all very adult with Olympia's porcelain facial features. This relates back to what I mentioned about her almost mocking adult's sexual behaviours (as mentioned in Zara Stanhope's article "Serious Play"). There's an obvious play on the childhood innocence that Olympia has and the very adult scene that she's been placed in.

In Stanhope's article she makes a suggestion that Papapetrou could possibly be "discrediting Olympia's imaginative faith" with the fake, painted backdrop of a harbour. She implies that we are influenced to see this fakery as the limits of the girl's childhood imagination. I think this is quite a relevant point. It seems just too perfect with the set up of boxes that Olympia is perched upon to be close to what would be considered the "average child's" fantasy worlds. Her upright, straight pose and careful placement of cliche props seem almost too perfect to be believable. Perhaps Papapetrou did intend for her audience to wonder about her daughter's imagination. Perhaps she did mean for us to question how inventive some children's fantasies are.

It's also obvious that these props were used deliberately for the audience to make a conscious connection to the cultural background associated with her image. All the photos in the series Dreamchild were based off Charles Lutwidge Dodgson's originals, and the one that this particular image re-stages (Xie Kitchin as a Tea Merchant) has a set up that is very close to his.

Fig. 2: Dodgson's Xie Kitchin as a Tea Merchant

It's clear from looking at Dodgson's photo that he was using all very cliche Chinese mise-en-scene, in an attempt for his audience to immediately identify what kind of ideas he was bringing across. As this time was basically the beginning of studio portraiture as we know it, Dodgson was trying to really emphasise this idea of a cultural background. In Papapetrou's image, she followed this same set up. She deliberately chose clothing and a backdrop that today's western audiences would be able to recognise as being Chinese. It's almost as if she picked out the most cliche colours and patterns that she could to play on that idea of the very adult situation she had her daughter placed in.



Fig. 1: from Polixeni Papapetrou's website, viewed September 30, 2012, http://www.polixenipapapetrou.net/works.php?cat=Dreamchild_2003

Fig. 2: (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson image) from Art.com, viewed September 30, 2012, http://www.art.com/gallery/id--a82953/charles-lutwidge-dodgson-posters.htm?ui=4383641D2EF34DBE8AA95F85FD2AE9A6

Z. Stanhope 2003, "Serious Play" 2003, viewed September 30, 2012, http://www.polixenipapapetrou.net/text.php?txt=ZS_SeriousPlay&cat=On_Dreamchild