Tracey Snelling’s photographs document streets and buildings, while her scaled-down models and multi-media installations re-create various places and environments. These models and installations often make use of sound and video footage to create a multi-sensory experience. They are also photographed and placed alongside the documentary images, creating a tension between the realms of the real and the artificial. Snelling uses her skills as a model-maker to tap into our love of dollhouses, tiny machines, and all things miniature, while critically touching upon often overlooked social issues.
Her concern with Hispanic culture addresses themes such as insiders, outsiders, and the often unobserved sides of people and places, while refraining from condoning, condemning, or glamorizing them. By manipulating the scale of her subject matter and capturing it through the use of different media, while assuming the role of both documenter and voyeur, Snelling compels the viewer to reengage with these environments from new perspectives, giving rise to an uncanny experience of simultaneous familiarity and estrangement.

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