PAST EXHIBITION

ROOMS NEEDED: Sentimental Rooms

Fryd Frydendahl

Coffee Talk: Friday, November 22 | 3-4pm

Baxter St at the CCNY is pleased to announce ROOMS NEEDED: Sentimental Rooms, work by Fryd Frydendahl. The work is curated by Michi Jigarjian and on view November 20, 2019 – January 18, 2020, in our Project Space at 128 Baxter Street. 

The exhibition features a display case of research materials and eight photographic prints from a larger in-progress project titled Sentimental Rooms. It is an exploration of teenage bedrooms left partly untouched by the parents many years after their teenager moved out. 

The first photograph for the series was done in 2015 when Frydendahl was invited to Thanksgiving Dinner in New Jersey at the home of a friend’s mother. She spent the night in her friend’s brother’s childhood bedroom. “I felt like I was in a time warp. It took me back to often complicated feelings around coming of age, while at the same time, being overwhelmed by a strange sentimentality that was difficult to place. I began looking for these preserved rooms to photograph.”

Once a place to assert boundaries on their journey towards autonomous adulthood, the rooms and subjects represent a place of self-expression with a blip of nostalgia. Cluttered with memorabilia—a faded Led Zeppelin towel across an unmade bed, a recumbent E.T. toy propped up on a dusty sideboard, curled and faded pictures from a high school class trip to Egypt, Frydendahl captures a time capsule of temporal, cultural relevance. 

Vacant yet preserved, these teenage bedrooms can hold lasting importance to the departed adolescence. For most, this space marks a place of security and privacy. It also marks independence as teens go to their bedrooms to individuate from the family through acts of defiance, explore their changing bodies, and express themselves aesthetically. Fryd Frydendahl takes us on a melancholic trip to the museum of an older version of the self. 

Frydendahl is currently searching for rooms, and any leads are welcomed.