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Destiny Deacon: Forced Into Images

Yellow walls with four blown up polaroids, a blurred person is walking past the images.

Destiny Deacon
Forced Into Images
Murray Art Museum Albury, 2021
Photo Jeremy Weihrauch

Destiny Deacon: Forced Into Images presents a selection of works from the artist’s celebrated 2001 series that have recently entered the museum collection.


The photographs of Forced Into Images tell a story of a woman’s life from birth to adulthood.


Presented in fragments, the narrative largely takes place in a staged domestic space, populated by family members and dolls, and carefully chosen props. What is real and what is imaged is unclear, creating a realm of memories, desires, traumas, and hopes.

The accompanying video, from which the series takes its title, presents the artist’s niece and nephew, sitting for the camera, bound by the frame. They play and act up, imaging themselves as they might be seen by others, and how they might be caught on video. Their interactions with the off-camera artist show the children at their most unmediated, only for the heavy editing of the work to reinforce the artifice of what is on display. Finally, the children don masks of adults and their performed re-invention continues. Produced in collaboration with Virginia Fraser, Forced Into Images remains one of Deacon’s most compelling and remarkable works.

The acquisition of these significant works has been made possible with the support of the Russell Mills Foundation.



Image Gallery

 A yellow room with a silent film of two kids playing props and blown up polaroids of people and their objects in their home
Destiny Deacon

Forced into Images,
Murray Art Museum Albury, 2021
Photo Jeremy Weihrauch.

A blown up polaroid of a woman in a towel lying on her back with one arm raised., half of the photography is blurred and distorted.
Destiny Deacon

Baby Love, 2001,
Murray Art Museum Albury, purchased with the support of the Russell Mills Foundation 2021.
Photo Jeremy Weihrauch.

Yellow walls with four blown up polaroids of people and random objects in a house, a blurred person is walking past the images.
Destiny Deacon

Forced into Images
Murray Art Museum Albury, 2021
Photo Jeremy Weihrauch

A blown up polaroid of a woman and child in a party hat holding a doll with dark skin and white body paint.
Destiny Deacon

Happy, Happy Institution, 2001
Murray Art Museum Albury, purchased with the support of the Russell Mills Foundation 2001.
Photo Jeremy Weihrauch

A person sitting on a black couch views a silent film on two kids sitting and playing with props.
Destiny Deacon & Virginia Fraser

Forced into Images, installation view, 2001
Murray Art Museum Albury, 2021, purchased with the support of the Russell Mills Foundation 2021.
Photo Jeremy Weihrauch

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