****You challenge the viewer's imagination here, Jen. The blurred man represents all of us -- someone in need of help or at very least, information. Yet the institution, represented by two masked , gowned figures seated behind a wall, does not even look at him. It is as if he does not even exist. And in a sense he does not, because you have abstracted him with blur and shadow. He is almost invisible to us, and he certainly is to the authorities, antiseptically protected behind their masks, uniforms, and barrier. They are supposed to be there to serve, to help, but you have found a moment in light, time, and space that challenges us to think about the nature of personal responsibility itself, and how people can hide within the protection of an institution to avoid taking personal responsibility. You use abstraction (the blurred, dark man and masked face), incongruity (dark vs light, avoiding instead of helping) to express a human value that is all too common in our society: avoidance of responsibility.
