In Vicky Martin’s photographs, home is never simply a place of comfort. It is also a stage on which identity is questioned and remade. Drawing on literary heroines such as Alice from Alice in Wonderland and Dorothy from Wizard of Oz, Martin constructs dreamlike scenes that move between fantasy and reality, using interiors, costumes and mise-en-scène to explore femininity, vulnerability and the strange work of becoming oneself.

Across No Place Like Home, Curiouser and Curiouser and Not in Kansas, Martin traces the pains and emotional dislocation of growing up, mainly the feeling of returning to something once familiar only to find that it no longer exists in the same form. Her images remind us that strength and fragility can coexist at the same time, and that leaving behind inherited roles may be the first step toward writing one’s own story.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY VICKY MARTIN 
TEXT BY EFŞAN GÜZEL