Annabel Miedema creates a beautifully strange series of family scenes

Annabel Miedema describes her series Acting Future as “an experimental journey with my family,” and the word experimental is certainly apt. The series sees Annabel, a young Netherlands-based photographer, reimagine what the future might look like if time were to collapse, and the cultural behaviours of the 1960s and 70s to become au fait again.

“I think I would have lived in one house with my entire family,” she explains of her fantasy future-past. “We would do things together and help each other when needed. Animals and humans would live next to each other. Comfortable atmospheres, music and eating together would be important.” This might sound abstract to the point of strangeness, but the multitude of characters and the almost tangible textures which recur through Acting Future show a solid link between these ideas and their visual equivalents. And beyond all of that, we can’t help but be drawn to the Charlie & the Chocolate Factory like oddness of the image of three grandparents tucked under one muted tangerine-coloured duvet, or a young girl with extraordinarily long arms trying not to grin as she pours milk into a teacup. It’s delightfully weird, which is reason enough for us.