EDWARD L. RUBIN Photographer

The portraits that I create in MY MANNEQUIN MOMENT are narrations depicting that transcendent moment when we know that we are not meant to be where we are, or be doing what we are doing, or that whatever it is we are involved with, or think, is either not for our highest good nor in our best interest; that it does not reflect our authentic selves. All of us have accepted ideas, or played roles, or have been in situations and relationships that were not really what we wanted, or were not what we thought we wanted. We are born into belief systems that carve grooves in our heads about success, normalcy, power, sex, inferiority, superiority, race, class, masculinity, femininity, and beauty. At what point do we stop listening to the voices placed in our head, and start listening to that one true Voice within us, our sacred Self? That’s the Mannequin Moment. And why mannequins? Because they are abstracted idealizations of human beings that represent unattainable perfection. They are false dreams personified–literally. So, I use these artificial simulacra as surrogates for my subjects in their decisive moment when they no longer fit in; when the veil is lifted.