Emma Collins — The Snail and the Mannequin

There is something subtly disconcerting about Emma Collins's The Snail and the Mannequin, currently occupying Fabrica's distinctive In Between Gallery window on Duke Street. Rather than presenting the home as a place of comfort and familiarity, Collins uses domestic interiors as stages in which something has gone slightly wrong. Familiar rooms contain unexpected combinations of people, objects and natural materials, creating photographs that hover between the ordinary and the uncanny.

Soil, roots, grass, branches and shells repeatedly intrude into these domestic spaces. Removed from their natural surroundings, they acquire a different meaning: things associated with grounding, growth and belonging become strangely displaced. The effect is not overtly sinister, but there is a persistent feeling that the photographs are asking us to look twice.

Collins's work draws consciously on the idea of the uncanny — the moment when something that should feel familiar suddenly becomes strange. Her constructed scenes are sometimes…