Objects Are People Too

‘My mind constantly rearranges everyday objects into faces. I've conditioned myself not to see them. Occasionally they break through. When that happens, I make polaroid photos. Nothing sought, nothing staged.’ The phenomenon of recognising faces in everyday objects, called face pareidolia, is experienced widely. Once thought of as a symptom of psychosis, it is increasingly understood that pareidolia images are processed by the same mechanism that would normally process emotion in a real face. In Justin Sutcliffe’s case, the likenesses often appear from combinations of objects randomly and fleetingly arranged rather than single items that happen to resemble faces. This collection of photographs represent a small selection of the images he has made around the world, often presenting themselves to him at unexpected moments during the course of his professional work.

‘My mind constantly rearranges everyday objects into faces. I''ve conditioned myself not to see them. Occasionally they break through. When that happens, I make polaroid photos. Nothing sought, nothing staged.’ The phenomenon of recognising faces in everyday objects, called face pareidolia, is experienced widely. Once thought of as a symptom of psychosis, it is increasingly understood that pareidolia images are processed by the same mechanism that would normally process emotion in a real face. In Justin Sutcliffe’s case, the likenesses often appear from combinations of objects randomly and fleetingly arranged rather than single items that happen to resemble faces. This collection of photographs represent a small selection of the images he has made around the world, often presenting themselves to him at unexpected moments during the course of his professional work.