The titles of the individual photographs – like Cigarette, Insurance Job or Glue Sniffing Kids – refer to possible causes of fire and the title of the series helps to lend it the analytical and technical characteristics of a documentary as opposed to any interpretation of the images in emotional terms. The artist seems to be developing a catalogue of typical situations, a sort of archive serving as a model for possible realities. The underlying atmosphere of Pickering’s images appears sober rather than dramatic. The photographs are in fact neither of scenes staged by the artist nor of real fires. They were taken at the UK Fire College Training and show simulations of burning homes created for training exercises. The interiors are strikingly realistic with paintings, linen, books and even food, thus endowing the photographs with a strikingly narrative character. Viewers are prompted to think about the fortunes and misfortunes of human destiny, but above all they are led towards a condition of experience of the imaginary that draws constant sustenance from realistic references.
The artist emphasizes that her photographs are “images of institutional representations of the real world”. In other words, the work is not about the subject represented but critical reflection on what is regarded today as representation of the real world – a fictitious reality or a real fiction that becomes a tool and vehicle of collective narration in the mass-media society.

Sarah Pickering (United Kingdom, 1972)

The Fire Scene series by the British artist Sarah Pickering features various interiors of private homes in which fire has suddenly and unexpectedly broken out. Despite the blazing flames, it is still possible recognize fragments of everyday life, tangible traces of those who occupied those places until just a few moments earlier. The inhabitants appear to have escaped miraculously from a terrible event in which they have lost all of their furniture and personal belongings. The viewers perceive that these dramatic images will be imprinted forever in the memories of those involved. They gaze powerlessly at one of mankind’s atavistic fears, the fear of fire and its destructive force. Personal property, both material possessions and objects laden with memories and emotions, is about to be destroyed.