Other Ways of Knowing is an exploration into the theatrical illusion of magic and misdirection in comparison to the ideas of criminal hoax, deceit and trickery. The pairing of these two concepts visually aims to examine how our perceptions interpret and inform our understanding of information in different contexts through the employment of deceptive clues, false emphasis, and symbolic meaning.
How we interpret information can be understood through methods described as ‘Ways of Knowing’; the tools that help us scientifically break down how we come to know or acquire knowledge.
There are eight methods, Language, Sense-perception, Emotion, Reason, Imagination, Faith, Intuition and Memory. My series Other Ways of Knowing focuses on visual perception, against that of our own instinct. Adapting these methods by concentrating on aesthetic judgements rather than abstract reasoning, the photographs play with intuitive understandings of what we’re seeing and ask us to judge for ourselves whether what we encounter is fact or fiction.
Alexandra Lethbridge (b.1987) is a photographer born in Hong Kong and based in the UK. Her education includes Master in Photography from the University of Brighton, BA in Photography from the Winchester School of Art and the One Year Certificate from the International Center of Photography. She was shortlisted for the Paris Photo-Aperture Foundation First Photo Book Award 2014 for her book, The Meteorite Hunter.