A Train-Wreck of Privilege

By at 8:14 am Wednesday, Apr 29

Maggie Koerth-Baker is a guest blogger on Boing Boing. A freelance science and health journalist, Maggie lives in Minneapolis, brain dumps on Twitter, and writes quite often for mental_floss magazine.

This is generally off from the sort of thing I normally post, but I am completely fascinated by the recent work of German-born photographer Anna Skladmann. "Little Adults" is a series of portraits, featuring the uncomfortably made-up and dead-eyed children of Russian elites. It's like everything that's creepy about those baby beauty pageants, but with (generally) better taste.

Which, somehow, manages to make it even more creepy. Skladmann says:

The series explores what it feels like to be a privileged child living in Russia, a country where its radical history and social hierarchy still rules their daily lives. It is the exploration of the recently growing society of the "Nouveau-Riche", in which children have been raised to become the "Elite" and to behave like little adults. These portraits express a tension between the natural character and the stereotype of appearance, and how that co-exists in the world of children."


You really must go check out this entire series. It will haunt you.

Tip o' the hat to Sami at Ty.rannosaur.us.

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Maggie Koerth-Baker

I do the Twitter, the Google+, and (to a much lesser extent) the Facebook.

Books
• Before the Lights Go Out: Conquering the Energy Crisis Before It Conquers Us, my book about the future of energy in the United States, will be published April 10th.

Upcoming Appearances
• February 20 at British Columbia Sustainable Energy Association — Vancouver. 7:00 pm
• February 29 at University of Minnesota: Frontiers in the Environment seminar
• March 1 at Huge Theater, Minneapolis: The Theater of Public Policy
• March 12 at University of Illinois — Urbana-Champaign
• March 27 at Penn State Institutes on Energy and the Environment
• March 29-31 at York College of Pennsylvania: Writer in residence
• April 2 at MIT: The New GeekSpeak: Science Journalists' New Toolbox, with Eli Kintisch and John Bohannon — Maseeh Hall, 4:00 pm
• April 9-13 at University of Colorado, Boulder: 64th Annual Conference on World Affairs
• April 10 at Colorado State University, Fort Collins — 4:00 pm
• June 22-25 in Aspen, Colorado: Aspen Environment Forum

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