A Little Bit Extra explores what it means to be seen, and more often, what it means not to be.

The work centres on Supporting Actors (extras) working in television and film; people whose role it is to exist just within the frame, contributing to a scene while remaining largely unnoticed. I was drawn to them not only because of the nature of their work, but because of the lives they lead beyond it; lives that are often complex, rich, and entirely separate from the roles they temporarily inhabit.

My practice has long been interested in what is overlooked in everyday life. I’m aware this is well-trodden photographic ground, but it continues to hold weight for me. That pull is personal, shaped by my experience of identity, visibility and perception. As a second generation immigrant, menopausal, mother of colour, I’ve wrestled with how my lived experience informs both the work I make and how that work is perceived. This tension sits at the heart of how I approach both subject and image.

Working closely and one-to-one with participants, often in their own homes, allowed for a slower, more considered way of making images. These encounters became less about directing and more about negotiating presence; between performance and something quieter, more revealing.

I exhibited actor headshots on a Toile de Jouy wallpaper I created using the images made in the participants’ homes. Supporting Actors are to film what wallpaper is to interior design: they add texture and depth, and can cover imperfections in the setting. Both are ubiquitous, and both fail in their role if they draw too much attention, unless that visibility is specifically required.

Although the individuals in the headshots also exist within the wallpaper, this is not explicitly expressed. If they are seen, they are seen; if not, it doesn’t alter their presence. Instead, the work asks a wider question to the viewer: ‘How closely do we really look at other people? Other groups of people? And what do we miss when we don’t look closely?’

Whether the viewer is able to comprehend the model’s representation in any but the most obvious way does not alter the reality of the model’s manifold existence.