Tall Poppy Syndrome

Overview

Australians have a heap of weird traditions. We call footwear thongs despite the rest of the world telling us that's inappropriate, we think cricket is thrilling, and we have developed an inexplicable taste for the wad of black salty tar that is Vegemite. But the more damaging traditions are the those that lay under the surface.

When American artists Amy Stein and Stacy Arezou Mehrfar discovered what 'tall poppy syndrome' was they were shocked. The very idea of it, the singling out and destroying of the talented and strong, goes against so much of what America and many other cultures teach from birth — if you work hard and try to succeed in life, nothing can hold you back. Setting off across NSW in 2010, the pair of photographers sought to explore the phenomenon from its source — the people themselves.

Their resulting series of work on display at Edmund Pearce this month offers an incredibly striking and composed look at this troubling subject. From the young to the old, these stark photographs express a strange medley of repressed and refined emotion that gets across the complexity well. After all, tall poppy syndrome isn't just about singling out the strong, it's also about the trusted underdog.