Wendy McMurdo

Wendy McMurdo has always been interested in play and the unguarded space of the child's imagination.  In the early 1990's she began to be interested in how children were engaging with technology.  This led her to work with the elementary schools, and how the new technology was also affecting the traditional visits to the museums (Sawa 2018).

Fig. 1: McMurdo 1999. Girl With Bears

McMurdo expands on the sense of anxiety the children briefly experience when exposed to the unusual experience of close proximity to what they would deem an unnerving experience.  "Is it alive or is it dead?" They often ask the guards (Sawa 2018).

She then connects that children don't go to museums as frequent, or at all- now they turn to technology for that experience and learning.

Her study grows more and more poignant each year as society's children are no longer just exposed, but more accurately bombarded with technology in multiple forms, educationally or otherwise.

The angst and unsettling feeling of the 'unfamiliar' that children used to experience once or twice a year can now barrage them on a daily basis, from exotic lands to violent movie clips and games that kill for fun, perhaps leaving them constantly asking (as Suzanne Collins coined) "Real or Not Real" (2008).

With this new train of thought I may have just had an AHA! moment about my project.   Stay tuned!

Figure 1. Wendy MCMURDO. 1999. From: Dale Berning Sawa. 2018. 'Wendy McMurdo's Best Photograph: Two Bears Eye Up a Little Girl.' From: The Guardian 16 August [online]. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/aug/16/wendy-mcmurdo-best-photograph-girl-bears-museum [accessed 11 July 2010].


Collins, Suzanne. 2008. The Hunger Games. Scholastic Press.

SAWA, Dale Berning. 2018. 'Wendy McMurdo's Best Photograph: Two Bears Eye Up a Little Girl.' The Guardian 16 August [online]. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/aug/16/wendy-mcmurdo-best-photograph-girl-bears-museum [accessed 11 July 2010].